Pheby, Derek F H, Araja, Diana, Berkis, Uldis et al. · Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020 · DOI
This study created a unified European system for measuring how much ME/CFS costs society in terms of healthcare, lost work, and other expenses. The researchers found that ME/CFS places a heavy financial burden on Europe, mostly because patients lose work productivity. However, they discovered that calculating these true costs is very difficult because different countries use different diagnostic criteria and many doctors don't diagnose ME/CFS, leaving many patients uncounted.
Economic burden studies provide essential evidence for healthcare policy and resource allocation decisions. By establishing a consistent European methodology, this work enables researchers to generate comparable cost data across countries, which can strengthen advocacy efforts and justify investment in ME/CFS research, diagnosis, and treatment.
This is a methodological framework paper, not a clinical trial or economic analysis itself. It does not provide actual economic cost estimates for ME/CFS or prove which treatments are cost-effective. It also does not establish prevalence rates or diagnose the reasons why physicians underdiagnose ME/CFS.
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
Pheby, Derek F H, Araja, Diana, Berkis, Uldis, Brenna, Elenka, Cullinan, John, de Korwin, Jean-Dominique, et al. (2020). The Development of a Consistent Europe-Wide Approach to Investigating the Economic Impact of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS): A Report from the European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE).. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8020088
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-pheby-2020-development-consistent,
author = {Pheby, Derek F H and Araja, Diana and Berkis, Uldis and Brenna, Elenka and Cullinan, John and de Korwin, Jean-Dominique and Gitto, Lara and Hughes, Dyfrig A and Hunter, Rachael M and Trepel, Dominic and Wang-Steverding, Xia},
title = {The Development of a Consistent Europe-Wide Approach to Investigating the Economic Impact of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS): A Report from the European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE).},
journal = {Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland)},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.3390/healthcare8020088},
note = {PubMed: 32272608},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/pheby-2020-development-consistent},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/pheby-2020-development-consistent
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