In a paper published Wednesday, researchers at the North Carolina-based RTI International and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta provide the first state-by-state estimates of obesity-attributable medical expenditures. The paper also provides rough estimates of the cost burden that falls on taxpayers in each state through Medicare and Medicaid.
Published in the journal Obesity Research, the paper estimates that national medical expenditures resulting from obesity (excluding overweight) are $75 billion in 2003 dollars. State-level estimates range from $87 million in Wyoming to $7.7 billion in California.
The prevalence of obesity in North Carolina, based on self-reported data, is 24 percent of the adult population. Obesity-related medical expenditures in the state total $2.138 billion, with $1.11 billion of the total being financed by Medicare and Medicaid.
Obesity-related expenditures represent about 6 percent of North Carolina’s health care bill. However, because the prevalence of obesity is higher in the Medicaid population than in the state’s general population, the percentage of state Medicaid expenditures attributable to obesity is nearly twice as high and totaled an estimated $662 million in 2003.
“These estimates of obesity-attributable medical expenditures present the newest available information concerning the economic impact of obesity at the state level,” authors of the paper said. They urged policy makers to consider these estimates, along with other factors, in determining how best to allocate scarce public health resources.
According to Dr. Leah Devlin, N.C. State health director, the obesity epidemic is a call to action for public health and a compelling example of the importance of our prevention-oriented approach to health. Comprehensive efforts to change health behavior must foster supportive policies, as well as social and physical environments that encourage healthy lifestyles. North Carolina’s state public health plan to address the obesity epidemic can be found here.
The authors cautioned, however, that because state-level estimates are associated with large standard errors, the estimates should not be used to make cost comparisons across states or between payors within states.
The complete analysis, “State-Level Estimates of Annual Medical Expenditures Attributable to Obesity,” by Eric A. Finkelstein and Ian C. Fiebelkorn, RTI International, and Guijing Wang, CDC, appears in the January 2004 edition of the journal Obesity Research, published by the American Association for the Study of Obesity. Copies of the paper are available from the journal’s web site. Copies of the full report may be requested by e-mail to [email protected].