OBJECTIVES: To create an evidence map of studies reporting the direct and indirect costs and resource use associated with different types of pancreatitis, and the geographical settings in which these studies were conducted. METHODS: We searched the heoro.com database (www.heoro.com) for costs and resource use studies in pancreatitis published between 1960 and 1^st December 2016. We analysed the abstracts identified by the search to determine the different types of economic burden outcomes cited across the range of geographical locations, subtypes of pancreatitis and interventions. We presented the findings as an evidence map. RESULTS: We found a total of 197 abstracts. Of these, 180 reported resource use data from at least 32 countries, 95 reported direct costs from 19 countries and 11 reported indirect costs from 7 countries. Most studies (65) were conducted in the United States, with 21 abstracts from China, 16 from the UK, 11 from Germany, 10 from Italy, 8 from the Netherlands and 6 each from Japan and Spain. Acute severe necrotising pancreatitis was the focus of 51 studies, mainly from China and the US, chronic pancreatitis in 47 studies, mainly from the US, biliary pancreatitis in 48 studies, mainly from the US, China and Italy, and alcoholic pancreatitis in 19 studies, mainly from the US and UK. Interventions studied included surgical, endoscopic and nutritional interventions, lithotripsy and radiotherapy. Pharmaceutical interventions evaluated included octreotide, gabexate, antibiotics and protease inhibitors. CONCLUSIONS: As with many diseases, there is a relative lack of published data on indirect costs of pancreatitis, and two-thirds of studies reporting direct cost data were from four jurisdictions: the US, China, the UK and the Netherlands.