Specifically, there was great variety in the included obesity-related diseases and complications among the studies. To make true advances, these initiatives should be part of concerted efforts by local and national governmental, health, and nonprofit organizations, food companies, advertisers, and individuals to make healthy weights the norm rather than the exception. The results of the two papers together show that total societal costs in Germany due to obesity have increased from 9.8 million to 12.2 million between 2002 and 2008. By contrast, the study from Canada used RR data from a previously conducted literature review on studies of the general population of Western countries. Obesity also imposes a large economic burden on the individual, and on families and nations [7,8]. It may raise your risk of developing multiple health conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. [45] who used a similar approach to estimate the annual COO in Canada. government site. By one estimate, the U.S. spent $190 billion on obesity-related health care expenses in 2005-double previous estimates. This prevents an informative comparison between most of the studies. This systematic review has been performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines [34]. The third-party payer perspective includes insurance companies, governmental agencies, and employers. Since obesity itself is not only a disease but also a risk factor for other diseases, it is important to study which co-morbidities have been included in the different COO analyses. 1. Having access to healthy food options, as well as a local area where people can use active transport and easily get to parks and amenities, all support a healthy lifestyle for children and their families and reduce the risk of overweight and obesity. The items that were included in the estimation of the patient-level data included drug medication in all twelve studies, but the other items, e.g., hospitalization costs, physician visit costs, inpatient and outpatient costs, varied across all studies. Most people with obesity and people who are overweight take in more energy from food and drink than they use up with physical activity. Lehnert T., Sonntag D., Konnopka A., Riedel-Heller S., Konig H.H. Watch the launch event on World Bank Live(February 6, 9-10:30am ET). The economic burden of obesity worldwide: a systematic review of the direct costs of obesity. We have found that there is still a large heterogeneity across the available COO literature. These perspectives measure costs to the society, health care systems, participants and their families and third-party payers [13,14]. Some reviews have included studies that accounted for direct costs [23,26,28], while others have included only indirect costs [25]. Alter D.A., Wijeysundera H.C., Franklin B., Austin P.C., Chong A., Oh P.I., Tu J.V., Stukel T.A. J Health Econ. The top-down approach is simple, transparent, and cheaper and faster than the bottom-up approach. This might require extensive resources and may not be always practical (e.g., for estimating the future cost) [62]. Obesity: Health consequences of being overweight World Health Organization Choosing Intervention That Are Cost Effective. For example, whereas An [36] included out-of-pocket expenses, inpatient and outpatient costs, office-based medical provider services, emergency room services and medication, Effertz et al. [40] also used a top-down approach with Ministry of Health data to estimate the annual health care costs, which amounted to US $269.6 million. What does obesity cost the economy? - Full Fact Andreyeva T., Sturm R., Ringel J.S. 2009; 6:e1000058. The details of the searching strategy with key words and initial hits are provided in Appendix A to ensure reproducibility and transparency of the work. The top-down approach estimates economic costs by using aggregate data on mortality, morbidity, hospital admissions, general practice consultations, disease-related costs, and other health-related indicators along with population attributable fraction (PAF) or population attributable risk (PAR) to calculate attributable costs [55,56,57]. Aug 31, 2012 By Cheryl Ann Borne The Stigma of Obesity: Humiliation is Hard to Shed As a child, the start of a new school year was my least favorite time of the year. Therefore, diabetes and CVDs were the most commonly considered comorbidities of obesity in the selected studies. Su et al. What does obesity cost th e economy? Building upon evidence from several other reports, it identifies an action agenda for countries to follow, with support from the World Bank and the international development community. Thompson D, Edelsberg J, Colditz GA, Bird AP, Oster G. Lifetime health and economic consequences of obesity. [44] and Lehnert et al. Hughes D., McGuire A. 2. In addition, obesity prevalence rates were obtained from self-reported weight and height, which method may lead to either overestimation or underestimation of costs attributable to obesity, when either too many or too few people are categorized as obese, based on self-reported weight and height. After removing studies that met the exclusion criteria during the initial screening, the full text of the remaining studies was assessed against the inclusion criteria and any differences were discussed and a consensus was reached. Multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. Lancet. 10. Cawley J, Meyerhoefer C. The medical care costs of obesity: an instrumental variables approach. Marchesini G., Moscatiello S., Di Domizio S., Forlani G. Obesity-associated liver disease. Danaei G, Ding EL, Mozaffarian D, et al. Four studies [31,35,47,50] have also included mental disorders such as depression. In addition, none of the reviews has systematically analysed the obesity-related co-morbidities included in the cost calculation. Los Angeles - Dec. 7, 2020 - The economic and social impact of obesity has risen to nearly $1.4 trillion dollars, up from $976 billion in 2014 according to the Milken Institute's newest report, " Weighing Down America: 2020 Update ." 1, 2 The prevalence of obesity has increased by threefold since the mid 70s of last century and If the current global trend continues, it is predicted that over a billion of the world population will b. While it can lead to preventable chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some forms of cancer, it can also impact mental health, as well as social and economic opportunities. The two studies from Germany used relative risks (RR) data from studies conducted in the USA to calculate the PAF. However, one of these studies [43] described this method as a societal perspective rather than a health care perspective. Background: The rising prevalence of obesity represents an important public health issue. Also, hepatic steatosis is known to be an associated comorbidity of obesity [78]. Indirect costs, which have been defined as resources forgone as a result of a health condition,(2) fall into various categories: Indirect costs are harder to identify and measure than direct costs. The economic cost of obesity: The French situation. Su W., Huang J., Chen F., Iacobucci W., Mocarski M., Dall T.M., Perreault L. Modeling the clinical and economic implications of obesity using microsimulation. The costs of overweight and obesity-related diseases in the Brazilian public health system: Cross-sectional study. Obesity is broadly preventable, and it is caused by complex multifaceted interaction between genetics, environmental and human behaviour factors. He estimated that in 1986, obesity was responsible for 5.5 percent of the direct and indirect costs associated with these common medical conditions, or about $39 billion. A BMI of 25 to <30 kg/m is defined as overweight and BMI 30 kg/m is classified as obese [4,5]. Specchia M.L., Veneziano M.A., Cadeddu C., Ferriero A.M., Mancuso A., Ianuale C., Parente P., Capri S., Ricciardi W. Economic impact of adult obesity on health systems: A systematic review. FOIA Consequently, the different data sources used to estimate the RR relevant for the cost calculation need to be considered. Our verdict This is the best estimate we've got of the total cost of obesity and being overweight to the NHS and the economy. There were six studies from Germany [42,43,44,46,47,54], six from the USA [31,36,37,39,51,52], three from Brazil [30,38,40] and two from Canada [35,45]. Von Lengerke T., Krauth C. Economic costs of adult obesity: A review of recent European studies with a focus on subgroup-specific costs. [53] might underestimate them. Out of nine studies, in eight studies [42,44,45,46,47,49,50,53] researchers used the human capital approach (HCA) to calculate the indirect costs. Indirect costs are the productivity loss cost due to morbidity and early mortality [33]. (1) The enormity of this economic burden and the huge toll that excess weight takes on health and well-being are beginning to raise global political awareness that individuals, communities, states, nations, and international organizations must do more to stem the rising tide of obesity. [47] and Neovius et al. Bloom B.S., Bruno D.J., Maman D.Y., Jayadevappa R. Usefulness of US cost-of-illness studies in healthcare decision making. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Glossary of Statistical TermsDeveloped, Developing Countries. 4. [52], who calculated lifetime costs from 65 years onwards. Why It Matters | Overweight & Obesity | CDC Overweight and obesity affects many Australians, The Medicaid perspective, a government programme financed by federal, state and local funds for persons of all ages within certain income limits, was used in the U.S. study while in the German study, the perspective of the Techniker Krankenkasse insurance company was used. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help (3) Subsequent reports on obesity-related medical spending (direct costs) have charted a steady rise in obesitys cost over the years, as the epidemic has grown. The most recent studies that sample US populations have identified at least four major categories of economic impact linked with the obesity epidemic: direct medical costs, productivity costs, transportation costs, and human capital costs. Moreover, the Campbell and Cochrane Economics Methods Group guidelines have been followed including search criteria, data extraction, synthesis and critical analysis. Nevertheless, the costs estimated in these two studies differ crucially from those reported by Krueger et al. Direct costs include all direct medical and non-medical costs for diagnosis, treatment and transportation [32]. Indirect costs only were calculated in two studies [47,49]. [38] collected data of the national health database from 2008 to 2010 and their estimated cost of US $1.1 billion reflects the average of 3 years. In 2014, more than 2.1 billion people, nearly 30% of the global population, were overweight or obese and 5% of the deaths worldwide were attributable to obesity. Cost-of-Illness StudiesA Primer. For example, in one study from Brazil, by Bahia et al. Since obesity is a complex disease condition with much different co-morbidity, what fraction of the co-morbidities is attributed to obesity has much influence on the cost calculation. Therefore, public health interventions should focus on the prevention of obesity as soon as possible, ideally at a young age. Dee A., Kearns K., ONeill C., Sharp L., Staines A., ODwyer V., Fitzgerald S., Perry I.J. 6. Rtveladze K., Marsh T., Webber L., Kilpi F., Levy D., Conde W., McPherson K., Brown M. Health and economic burden of obesity in Brazil. [53] included only colon cancer among the cancers. Conclusions: There is an urgent need for public health measures to prevent obesity in order to save societal resources. just as a variety of health factors may affect the accuracy of BMI to predict how much . [43] only estimated direct costs, yet also used the term societal to describe their perspective. Methods: A systematic literature search of studies in the English language was carried out in Medline (PubMed) and Web of Science databases to select cost-of-illness studies calculating the cost of obesity in a study population aged 18 years with obesity, as defined by a body mass index of 30 kg/m, for the whole selected country.
