Understanding the economic cost of obesity risk represents an important aspect of prevention and management of the obesity pandemic. Thus, assessing the economic impact of obesity on society is increasingly important. Prior studies about obesity-related costs in the United States focused more on the national-level direct and indirect costs that evolved over a short time horizon. The most popular estimation procedures included prevalence-based and incidence-based methods. While the prior studies provide important research contributions, still a more comprehensive analysis of the costs is necessary to account for aggregate level estimates at the national and state levels. We propose a new methodology for building the state-level direct and indirect economic cost data associated with obesity. Our model is developed using a unique top-down methodology that integrates a prevalence-based approach with various medical-level costs, economic, demographic, and socio-economic factors. A bootstrapping technique is integrated with the state-level cost in order to estimate the average cost per person. Using this technique, we found that the estimated 95% confidence interval for total 2018 per capita costs is ($3,454, $3,606), giving a national total of $419.7 billion. Our forecast for the total national cost of obesity in 2021 is $450.6 billion. We hope that our study will further assist actuaries that are working in the healthcare sector as well as policymakers at the state level, promote interest in this topic, and open discussion for further research in this area.
Author: Thomas Woods
Advisor: Tatjana Miljkovic, Statistics
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