As studies like those at the University of Victoria begin to quantify the massive costs-both actual and opportunity-associated with NCDs, it has become clear that the problem is too large to ignore.
However, the opportunity costs associated with NCDs also present a unique opportunity. In combating non-communicable diseases, partners are actually engaging in value creation by increasing the productivity and longevity of the workforce. Addressing the NCD problem is not only a matter of reducing costs on healthcare structures, it is also a matter of increasing a population's economic output.
We have discussed how non-working citizens can quickly become liabilities, using government services at a far higher rate than they produce economic value. We have also discussed how long-term NCD patients can remove their friends and family from the workforce by requiring involved at-home care.
Likewise, we have highlighted how a healthy citizen can, by participating in the workforce, act as an economic asset to society. This, too, is a form of value creation. By delivering, say, decades of additional working life to a population, a PPP can create lasting value. How this value is ultimately captured and shared between the public and private sectors remains difficult to quantify, but new ways of measuring success are emerging to meet this very challenge (see Chapter 7).