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The influence of obesity and overweight on medical costs: a panel data perspective

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  • Toni Mora
  • Joan Gil
  • Antoni Sicras-Mainar

Abstract

This paper estimates the increase of direct medical costs of both severe and moderate obesity and overweight with respect to a normal-weight individual using a two-part generalised linear model and a longitudinal dataset of medical and administrative records of patients in primary and secondary healthcare centres followed up over seven consecutive years (2004–2010) in Spain. Our findings indicate that severe and moderate obesity imposes a substantial burden on the Spanish healthcare system. Specifically, being severely obese is associated with increases in medical costs of 26 % (instrumental variables (IV) estimate, 34 %) compared to a normal-weight individual. The effects of moderate obesity and overweight are more modest, raising medical costs by 16 % (IV estimate, 29 %) and 8.5 % (IV estimate, 23 %), respectively. These changes in costs are slightly higher for those patients below the median age and for the women. Notwithstanding, the effects found in this study are comparatively much lower than that reported for the USA, based basically on a private healthcare system and characterised by a more obese population. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

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  • Toni Mora & Joan Gil & Antoni Sicras-Mainar, 2015. "The influence of obesity and overweight on medical costs: a panel data perspective," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(2), pages 161-173, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujhec:v:16:y:2015:i:2:p:161-173
    DOI: 10.1007/s10198-014-0562-z
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    Cited by:

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    2. Irina B. Grafova & Alan C. Monheit & Rizie Kumar, 2019. "How Do Economic Shocks Affect Family Health Care Spending Burdens?," NBER Working Papers 26443, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Michael Laxy & Renée Stark & Annette Peters & Hans Hauner & Rolf Holle & Christina M. Teuner, 2017. "The Non-Linear Relationship between BMI and Health Care Costs and the Resulting Cost Fraction Attributable to Obesity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-6, August.
    4. Maximilian Tremmel & Ulf-G. Gerdtham & Peter M. Nilsson & Sanjib Saha, 2017. "Economic Burden of Obesity: A Systematic Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Boysen, O. & Bradford, H. & Urban, K. & Balie, J., 2018. "Taxing Highly Processed Foods: Impacts on Obesity and Underweight in Sub-Saharan Africa," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275990, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Lopez-Agudo, Luis Alejandro & Marcenaro-Gutierrez, Oscar David, 2021. "The relationship between overweight and academic performance, life satisfaction and school life," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Chee‐Ruey Hsieh & Xuezheng Qin, 2018. "Depression hurts, depression costs: The medical spending attributable to depression and depressive symptoms in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 525-544, March.
    8. Ren, Yanjun & Castro Campos, Bente & Loy, Jens-Peter & Brosig, Stephan, 2019. "Low-income and overweight in China: Evidence from a life-course utility model," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(8), pages 1753-1767.
    9. Alan C. Monheit & Irina B. Grafova & Rizie Kumar, 2020. "How does family health care use respond to economic shocks? realized and anticipated effects," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 307-334, June.
    10. Dogbe, Wisdom & Gil, Jose M., 2020. "Internalizing the public cost of obesity in Spain: Distributional effects on nutrient intake," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1352-1371.
    11. Irina B. Grafova & Alan C. Monheit & Rizie Kumar, 2020. "How do changes in income, employment and health insurance affect family mental health spending?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 239-263, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    BMI and obesity; Healthcare costs; Panel data; Two-part models; I10; I14;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

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