Direct household costs

Households have direct and indirect costs. Direct household costs imply payments for transport to and from the health services, acconunodation for the accompanying relative, special buildings for disabled patients (e.g., changed bathroom), costs for diet, and the re-education, for instance new training after a paralysis. Private households also have to bear direct payments for user fees and drugs, which are an income of the providers. There must be clearing between these components of the COI to avoid double-counting. 

The calculation of direct household costs of HIV/AIDS is quite difficult. First, resource consumption is hardly documented, so that patients have to be interviewed or be asked to keep household diaries for all expenditure due to their disease. Second, it is frequently not easy to allot a certain expenditure to a specific disease. Co-payments for drugs, practitioner, and hospital services as well as transport to and from the provider are easily allocated to the COI of this disease. But other direct household costs might be even higher, such as the costs of a special diet, but it is very difficult to analyze whether these costs are really incurred due to this illness. Studies demonstrate that direct household costs might be small in developed countries, but they might make up to 50% of the total COI in developing countries (Su et al. 2006). 

As discussed previously, direct COI are the economic representation of resource consumption and have a natural monetary value. They can occur on the provider and the household side. This chapter analyses the direct COI in four steps Provider cost before HAART (Sect. 2.1.1), provider cost in the HA ART era (Sect. 2.1.2), lifetime provider costs (Sect. 2.1.3), and direct household cost (Sect. 2.1.4). 

However, we know hardly anything on these costs. Providers document all costs and health insurances keep files with all expenditure. Households have no documentation on such costs, and direct household costs are hardly recovered by health insurances. Thus, there is a major research field waiting to be covered. Merely Bozette et al. (2001) based their cost assessment on household documentations, but they do not sufQciently distinguish between household and provider costs. 

Indirect household costs summarize all lost opportunities. During the time of illness, a patient and a caring relative cannot work. Therefore, wage-earners lose salaries as well as the economy production force. Sick parents do not have time to take care of their children so that their education will suffer. Therefore, morbidity leads to indirect costs. The term socio-economic costs is used for the total of direct and indirect costs as both have to be shouldered by the society. 

In a nut-shell Out knowledge of the direct COI of HIV/AIDS has strongly increased in the last 10 years. Depending on the level of care in a particular country, provider cost per case might be as high as US 25,000 p.a., and the discounted lifetime costs in the HAART era will be more than 100,000 US per case. There can be no doubt that AIDS will cause higher costs for the patients and his household, but we know almost nothing about these costs. 

Most of the HIV-related economic studies calculate direct costs. However, the socioeconomic costs of HI V/AIDS are far greater. For instance, patients as well as family members and friends who provide care incur costs that are not related to payments but to lost income (indirect cost). This cost category includes the loss of wages for a wage earner, the loss of labor for a non-wage earner (e.g., pensioner, household), the loss of harvest for a farmer, and other losses (e.g., loss of education and chances for children of AIDS patients). Some studies address this issue. 

A solution formulation is the true solution containing the toxicant and solvent, which can be used directly without further dilution. Solutions can be used for household insect sprays, roadside weed eradication, and rangeland spraying, whenever phytotoxicity is not a problem. In these cases, the toxicant can be dissolved in a low-cost solvent such as kerosene or fuel oil. Solutions do not contain surfactants, because the solvent wets the target readily. 

The costs of the recycling facility are established by the Swiss Model for financing the recycling of household batteries. A surcharge on every battery sold (. 05 to. 30) and an prospective collection efficiency of 80 % are the two basic objectives. The advantage of this Swiss system is that only the actual battery consumers pay the bill and the administrative overhead maintained at a relatively low level. Perhaps the only disadvantage is that, since there is no direct financial gain for the consumer, "public education" represents the only means to stimulate consumers to improve battery collection rates. 

According to the NSC, the economic impact of fatal and nonfatal unintentional injuries amounted to 693.5 billion in 2009. This is equivalent to about 2,300 per capita, or about 5,900 per household. These are costs that every individual and household pays whether directly out of pocket, through higher prices for goods and services, or through higher taxes. Approximately 35,000,000 hours are lost in a typical year as a result of accidents. (National Safety Council, Injury and Death Statistics, Injury Facts, 2009)... 

The efficiency of collection and sorting structures is measured by collection costs, capture rate and purity of generated feedstock. Some current methods of collecting discarded plastic products are displayed in Table 3.1. In kerbside collection households are given directives on at what level they should sort their waste, whereas drop-off and buy-back centres have specifications on what waste types are accepted. 

In the last decade a continuously increase in the number of application fields was observed. The technical feasibility and the reliability of the materials and components were shown in many applications, such as valves and other parts for the automotive industry, bearings, household applications. For the wider penetration into the market there is a engineering work necessary to optimise the production, stabilise the reliability and reduce the production cost. First steps in this direction were made by using low cost powders and optimising processing, sintering and finishing. 

Wastewater comprises liquid waste discharged by households, industries and commercial establishments, and is typically collected through sewage pipes in municipal areas. Wastewater also contains chemicals and pathogens that can lead to serious negative impacts on the quality of the environment as well as human health if it is drained directly into major watershed without treatment [4,5]. The use of wastewater as a feedstock in the production of PHA has been proposed as a relevant approach in the shift from a petrochemical-based chemical industry towards a biobased one in order to decrease its manufacturing cost and environmental impact [6]. 

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