CCNY Professor Helps Document Obesity’s Rising Impact on Longevity …

CCNY Professor Helps Document Obesity’s Rising Impact on Longevity
Quality-Adjusted Life Years Lost to U.S. Adults Due to Obesity More Than Doubles from 1993-2008 According to New Study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine 

San Diego, CA, August 3, 2010
– Although the prevalence of obesity and obesity-attributable deaths has steadily increased, the resultant burden of disease associated with obesity has not been well understood. A new study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine indicates that Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) lost to U.S. adults due to morbidity and mortality from obesity have more than doubled from 1993-2008 and the prevalence of obesity has increased 89.9% during the same period.

Using data from the 1993-2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the largest ongoing state- based health survey of U.S. adults, Haomiao Jia, PhD, Columbia University, and Erica I. Lubetkin, MD, MPH, The City College of New York, examined trends in the burden of obesity by estimating the obesity-related QALYs lost, defined as the sum of QALYs lost due to morbidity and future QALYs lost in expected life years due to premature deaths, among U.S. adults. They found the overall health burden of obesity has significantly increased since 1993 and such increases were observed in all gender and race/ethnicity subgroups and across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“The ability to collect data at the state and local levels is essential for designing and implementing interventions, such as promoting physical activity, that target the relevant at-risk populations,” according to Dr. Lubetkin. “Although the prevalence of obesity has been well documented in the general population, less is known about the impact on QALYs both in the general population and at the state and local levels….Our analysis enables the impact of obesity on morbidity and mortality to be examined using a single value to measure the Healthy People 2020 objectives and goals at the national, state, and local levels and for population subgroups.”

From 1993 to 2008, the obesity prevalence for U.S. adults increased from 14.1% to 26.7% (89.9%). Black women had the most QALYs lost due to obesity, at 0.0676 per person in 2008, which was 31% higher than QALYs lost in black men and about 50% higher than QALYs lost in white women and white men. A direct correlation between obesity-related QALYs lost and the percentage of the population reporting no leisure-time physical activity at the state level also was found.

The prevalence of obesity increased over time for all states, while obesity-related QALYs lost tended to follow a similar pattern. However, disparities among states lessened over time, with less obese states “catching up” to more obese states and producing a greater percentage change of QALYs lost.

“Collaborative efforts among groups at the national, state, and community (local) levels are needed in order to establish and sustain effective programs to reduce the prevalence of obesity,“ commented Dr. Jia. “Although the impact of current and future interventions on curtailing the burden of disease might not be available for a number of years, this method can provide an additional tool for the Healthy People 2020 toolbox by providing a means to measure objectives and goals. The availability of timely data would enable the impact of evidence-based interventions to be assessed on targeted populations and subgroups, promote continuous quality improvement through monitoring trends, and facilitate head-to-head comparisons with other modifiable health behaviors/risk factors and diseases.”

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* The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The City College of New York

** The article is “Obesity-Related Quality-Adjusted Life Years Lost in the U.S. from 1993 to 2008” by Haomiao Jia, PhD, and Erica I. Lubetkin, MD, MPH. It appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 39, Issue 3 (September 2010) published by Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2010.03.026

*** About the autors
— Haomiao Jia, PhD
Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health and School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York, NY
— Erica I. Lubetkin, MD, MPH
Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, New York, NY

**** About the AMERICAN JOURNAL of PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine (www.ajpm-online.net) is the official journal of The American College of Preventive Medicine (www.acpm.org) and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (www.atpm.org). It publishes articles in the areas of prevention research, teaching, practice and policy. Original research is published on interventions aimed at the prevention of chronic and acute disease and the promotion of individual and community health. The journal features papers that address the primary and secondary prevention of important clinical, behavioral and public health issues such as injury and violence, infectious disease, women’s health, smoking, sedentary behaviors and physical activity, nutrition, diabetes, obesity, and alcohol and drug abuse. Papers also address educational initiatives aimed at improving the ability of health professionals to provide effective clinical prevention and public health services. The journal also publishes official policy statements from the two co-sponsoring organizations, health services research pertinent to prevention and public health, review articles, media reviews, and editorials.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, with an Impact Factor of 4.235, is ranked 11th out of 122 Public, Environmental & Occupational Health titles and 16th out of 132 General and Internal Medicine titles according to the 2010 Journal Citation Reports© published by Thomson Reuters.

**** About ELSEVIER
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell (www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier’s online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai’s Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

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