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Economic Analyses of the Be Fit Be Well Program: A Weight Loss Program for Community Health Centers

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ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has released new guidelines on obesity, urging primary care physicians to provide obese patients with intensive, multi-component behavioral interventions. However, there are few studies of weight loss in real world nonacademic primary care, and even fewer in largely racial/ethnic minority, low-income samples.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the recruitment, intervention and replications costs of a 2-year, moderate intensity weight loss and blood pressure control intervention.

DESIGN

A comprehensive cost analysis was conducted, associated with a weight loss and hypertension management program delivered in three community health centers as part of a pragmatic randomized trial.

PARTICIPANTS

Three hundred and sixty-five high risk, low-income, inner city, minority (71 % were Black/African American and 13 % were Hispanic) patients who were both hypertensive and obese.

MAIN MEASURES

Measures included total recruitment costs and intervention costs, cost per participant, and incremental costs per unit reduction in weight and blood pressure.

KEY RESULTS

Recruitment and intervention costs were estimated $2,359 per participant for the 2-year program. Compared to the control intervention, the cost per additional kilogram lost was $2,204 /kg, and for blood pressure, $621 /mmHg. Sensitivity analyses suggest that if the program was offered to a larger sample and minor modifications were made, the cost per participant could be reduced to the levels of many commercially available products.

CONCLUSIONS

The costs associated with the Be Fit Be Well program were found to be significantly more expensive than many commercially available products, and much higher than the amount that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid reimburse physicians for obesity counseling. However, given the serious and costly health consequences associated with obesity in high risk, multimorbid and socioeconomically disadvantaged patients, the resources needed to provide interventions like those described here may still prove to be cost-effective with respect to producing long-term behavior change.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Barbara L. McCray for her editorial support.

Funding/Support

This work was supported in part by grant funding from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (UO1-HL087071). G. Bennett was supported by K22CA126992.

K. Emmons was supported by K05CA124415-04. G. Colditz was supported in part by P30CA091842 and the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. E. Warner was supported by grant 5T32CA009001-36 from the National Cancer Institute.

Disclaimer

The opinions and statements in this manuscript do not represent the official opinion of NHLBI/ NCI/NIH.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, P.O. Box 378066, Denver, CO, 80237-8066, USA

    Debra P. Ritzwoller PhD & Anna Y. Sukhanova MA

  2. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Russell E. Glasgow PhD

  3. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Gary G. Bennett PhD

  4. Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Gary G. Bennett PhD & Sandy Askew Mph

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Erica T. Warner ScD, Mph & Graham A. Colditz Md, DrPH

  6. Center for Community Based Research, Division of Population Sciences, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Erica T. Warner ScD, Mph, Mary L. Greaney PhD, Julie Goldman MSW, MPH & Karen M. Emmons PhD

  7. Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Karen M. Emmons PhD

  8. Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

    Graham A. Colditz Md, DrPH

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  1. Debra P. Ritzwoller PhD
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  2. Russell E. Glasgow PhD
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  3. Anna Y. Sukhanova MA
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  6. Mary L. Greaney PhD
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  9. Karen M. Emmons PhD
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  10. Graham A. Colditz Md, DrPH
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For the Be Fit Be Well Study Investigators

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Debra P. Ritzwoller PhD.

Additional information

Trial Registration: clinical trials.gov Identifier: NCT00661817

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Ritzwoller, D.P., Glasgow, R.E., Sukhanova, A.Y. et al. Economic Analyses of the Be Fit Be Well Program: A Weight Loss Program for Community Health Centers. J GEN INTERN MED 28, 1581–1588 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-013-2492-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-013-2492-3

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