Sleep disorders continue to present significant costs upon Australian society. In Deloitte Access Economics’ 2010 report, Re-awakening Australia, these costs were estimated to be $36.4 billion. Deloitte Access Economics was commissioned by the Sleep Health Foundation to re-estimate the cost of sleep disorders based on updated cost information and developments in the literature, to present an up-to-date estimate of the cost of sleep disorders upon Australian society. The updated estimate allows for comparison to other recent reports estimating the cost of inadequate sleep and the cost-effectiveness of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) for people with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).

Providing a contemporaneous time frame from which the costs of sleep disorders have been estimated will allow the community to better understand how the costs are distributed across clinical sleep disorders and across inadequate sleep more generally.

This report provides estimates for three well recognised and researched sleep disorders, OSA, insomnia and restless legs syndrome (RLS), consistent with the 2010 report.