Lloyd, A R, Pender, H · The Medical journal of Australia · 1992
This study looked at how much money ME/CFS costs—not just for patients themselves, but for the healthcare system and society overall. Researchers surveyed 42 patients in one Australian region about their medical expenses and lost income, then used those numbers to estimate what ME/CFS might cost across all of Australia. They found the disease creates a huge financial burden that had been largely overlooked by policymakers.
This was one of the first studies to systematically document the true economic cost of ME/CFS, providing evidence that the disease represents a substantial public health burden. By quantifying both direct and indirect costs, it helped establish that ME/CFS deserves serious attention from health economists and policymakers, not just clinicians.
This study does not establish the causes of ME/CFS or prove that the disease itself directly causes all measured economic losses—confounding factors, healthcare-seeking behaviors, and diagnostic accuracy could all influence the results. The extrapolation from one rural region to the entire Australian population involves significant assumptions that may not hold across different geographic and demographic areas.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Lloyd, A R & Pender, H (1992). The economic impact of chronic fatigue syndrome.. The Medical journal of Australia. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1406420/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-lloyd-1992-economic-impact,
author = {Lloyd, A R and Pender, H},
title = {The economic impact of chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {The Medical journal of Australia},
year = {1992},
note = {PubMed: 1406420},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lloyd-1992-economic-impact},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lloyd-1992-economic-impact
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