Cost-Effectiveness of Childhood Obesity Interventions
Summary
Childhood obesity imposes substantial burdens on health systems and societies, prompting rigorous economic evaluation of prevention and management interventions. Cost-effectiveness analyses compare the costs of interventions—ranging from educational programmes, school-based physical activity initiatives and dietary modifications to policy measures such as regulation of food marketing—against their health gains, typically expressed in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or health-adjusted life years (HALYs). Studies consistently show that multicomponent interventions combining behavioural counselling, environmental changes and community engagement frequently offer favourable value, especially when effects persist into adulthood. Economic models, employing lifetime horizons and societal perspectives, capture both direct healthcare savings and broader benefits such as improved productivity. Sensitivity analyses underscore the influence of assumptions on effect decay, intervention reach and equity considerations. Globally, scaling up cost-effective interventions—particularly in school and primary care settings—can reduce long-term chronic disease risk and yield net savings. Cross-sectoral collaboration and robust data on long-term outcomes remain priorities for optimising resource allocation and addressing disparities in obesity prevalence.
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Cost-Effectiveness of Childhood Obesity Interventions publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in cost-effectiveness of childhood obesity interventions across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Quality-adjusted life year (QALY): A composite measure combining life expectancy and health-related quality of life used to quantify the value of health outcomes.
Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER): The additional cost per additional unit of health benefit (often per QALY or HALY gained) when comparing an intervention with a comparator.
Health-adjusted life year (HALY): A unit reflecting the length and quality of life lived, combining morbidity and mortality into a single metric for economic evaluation.
References
- A systematic review of economic evaluations of interventions targeting childhood overweight and obesity. Obesity Reviews (2023).
- Cost-effectiveness of reducing children’s sedentary time and increasing physical activity at school: the Transform-Us! intervention. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (2024).
- Priority-setting for obesity prevention—The Assessing Cost-Effectiveness of obesity prevention policies in Australia (ACE-Obesity Policy) study. PLOS ONE (2020).
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