Abstracts / Posters
A patient-centred approach to estimate total annual Healthcare Costs by BMI in the UK Counterweight Programme
Obesity Reviews 12 (Suppl 1) (2011) 105
The Counterweight Project Team
Introduction: The UK Counterweight project has reported increased prescription cost with each unit increase in BMI (Counterweight Project Team, 2008). The present study aimed to quantify the relationship between BMI and total healthcare cost, with the patient as the unit of analysis.
Methods: Secondary analyses of 3,324 randomly selected patient data sets from 65 UK general practices. Healthcare costs at the primary level, outpatient and hospitalisation were calculated using the available data and unit costs obtained from Personal Social Services Research Unit. Multivariate regression analyses were undertaken to explore the relationship between healthcare cost and BMI.
Results: Significant associations (p <0.05) were found between healthcare cost and all dependent variables (women > men, drinkers < non-drinkers, smokers > non-smokers, and increasing with increasing physical activity, with increasing age and increasing BMI). Adjusted healthcare cost increased by £14 (95% CI £5-19) per unit change in BMI and by £13 (95% CI £11-15) per additional year of life.
After adjusting for age, sex, smoking, physical activity and alcohol consumption, annual healthcare cost increased with increasing BMI.
Conclusion: Total healthcare cost rises approximately linearly, and is about three-fold greater with BMI 40 than 20, for both men and women.
References: Counterweight Project Team. Health Services Research & Policy 2008;13(3):158-166
Conflict of Interest: none to declare.
Funding: This project was funded through Scottish Government funding for the health economic evaluation of the Counterweight Programme