The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #36964

Li Yan Wang, MBA, MA¹, Quanhe Yang², and Richard Lowry, MD, MS¹. (1) DASH, NCCDPHP, CDC, 4770 Buford Hwy, MS K-33, Chamblee, GA 30341, 770 488-6195, lgw0@cdc.gov, (2) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC, 4770 Buford Hwy, MS F-45, Chamblee, GA 30341

Background: A 2-year, school-based obesity prevention program known as Planet Health was implemented in five Boston middles schools among students grade 6-7. The program was an interdisciplinary curriculum with intervention material infused into 4 major subject areas and physical education.

Objective: To assess the cost-effectiveness of the school-based intervention compared to “no intervention” in preventing overweight in adulthood.

Method: Standard cost-effectiveness analysis methods and a societal perspective were used in this study. Three categories of costs were measured including intervention costs, medical care costs associated with adulthood overweight, and costs of productivity loss associated with adulthood overweight. The health outcome was measured as cases of adulthood obesity prevented. The cost-effectiveness ratio was measured as net cost per case of adulthood overweight prevented by the intervention when compared with “no intervention”.

Results: Under base-case assumption, at an intervention cost of $33,677, the program prevented an estimated 6.6 (of a total of 310) female students from becoming overweight adults. As a result, society could expect to save $18,172 in medical care costs and $19,050 in social costs. This translated to a cost-saving of $534 per case of adulthood overweight prevented. Results remained cost-saving under a wide range of model parameter estimates.

Conclusions: The Planet Health program is cost-effective and cost-saving in most scenarios considered. School-based prevention programs of this type are likely to be a cost-effective use of public funds and warrant careful consideration by policy makers and program planners.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the presentation, the participant will be able to understand (
• how to conduct an economic analysis on a school-based health education program, (2)whether the intervention understudy was cost-effective or cost-saving, (
• what are the implications of the study findings.

Keywords: Obesity, Economic Analysis

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.