Economic evaluation of a school-based strategy to prevent overweight and obesity in French adolescents: insights from the PRALIMAP randomised trial

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to provide cost-effectiveness and budget impact analyses of a school-based overweight/obesity screening and care prevention strategy among adolescents.

STUDY DESIGN

Cost-effectiveness and budget impact analyses.

METHODS

Data from 3538 adolescents who participated in a school-based randomised controlled trial in the Northeast of France were used. Costs (from a public payer's perspective) included screening for overweight and obesity and subsequent care. Effectiveness was measured as the change in body mass index (kilogram per square metre), prevalence of overweight/obesity, moderate physical activity energy expenditure, duration and frequency and total sitting time. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was calculated, and a budget impact analysis was conducted.

RESULTS

The screening and care strategy resulted in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of €1634.48 per averted case of overweight/obesity and €255.43 per body mass index unit decrease. The costs for increasing moderate physical activity by 1000 metabolic equivalent of task-min/week, duration by 60 min/week and frequency 1 day/week were €165.28, €39.21 and €93.66 per adolescent, respectively. Decreasing total sitting time by 60 min/week had a cost of €8.49 per adolescent. The cost of implementing the strategy nationally was estimated to be €50.1 million with a payback period from 3.6 to 7.3 years.

CONCLUSIONS

The screening and care strategy could be an efficient way to prevent overweight and obesity among adolescents. Future studies should investigate how the current results could be achieved in schools with different settings and thus justify its relevance for overweight and obesity prevention to policy-makers.

Health resource use and costs of symptomatic knee and/or hip osteoarthritis

BACKGROUND

Data on the economic consequences of hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA) are scarce. We aimed to estimate the annual direct and indirect costs for patients followed for hip and/or knee OA in the Knee and Hip Osteoarthritis Long term Assessment (KHOALA) cohort.

METHODS

The KHOALA cohort, set up from 2007 to 2009, is a French multicenter study of 878 individuals with symptomatic knee/hip OA who were 40-75 years old. Resources used were collected annually for 5 years. Costs were assigned by using official sources and expressed in 2018 euros per patient.

RESULTS

The mean annual total costs per patient over the 5-year study period were 2,180 ± 5,305€. The mean annual direct medical costs per patient were 2,120 ± 5,275€ and mean annual indirect costs per patient 180 ± 1,735€ for people of working age. Costs increased slightly over the study period. Drugs were the largest cost share, representing over 50% of all direct costs. However, the proportion attributable to OA drugs accounted for only 10.5% of drug costs. The second cost share was hospitalizations; hip and knee prosthetic surgery accounted for 27% of surgery hospitalization costs. Health professional visits were the third cost share, accounting for 3% of direct medical costs. The median costs induced could be as high as 2 billion €/year (IQR 0.7-4.3) in France.

CONCLUSION

Hip and knee OA costs were substantial and increased over the study period in France. However, the costs attributable to OA represented only a small fraction of overall costs.