Integrating the Economic and Public Health Views of Obesity

Integrating the Economic and Public Health Views of Obesity

Background: Both economic and public health/medical perspectives play an important role in the policy process, but often approach policy questions in an incompatible way. The perspectives can complement each other, though harnessing any synergy requires an understanding of both. At least partly as a consequence of different philosophical underpinning, true multidisciplinary research is largely absent.

Methods: Contrast the two perspectives and review economic arguments in light of the evidence on diet and activity behavior from other fields.

Results: When health compromising outcomes are consequences of environmental incentives that are inefficient (market failures), economists see a role for government and regulatory interventions. In those situations, public health and economic opinions will coincide, despite a fundamentally different rationale. Today's society has evidence of market failures and externalities that increase the cost of maintaining a normal weight, which varies by SES and cultural background.

Discussion. It has become clear that preventing obesity requires altering economic or environmental incentives affect many dimensions of our life. Economic analyses can quantify trade-offs involved and assess how different stakeholders are affected. This information can improve the effectiveness, sustainability, and political feasibility of proposed interventions. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the key issue in the world of political decisions is the distribution of costs and benefits, an issue at the center of economics. As the focus of interventions shifts away from traditional informational/educational to environmental and policy approaches, complementing a public health perspective with an economic perspective becomes increasingly important.