Centre for Nutrition, Prevention and Health Services, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
Department of Epidemiology, Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD (GRIAC), University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2018 Oct;72(10):940-943. doi: 10.1136/jech-2017-210222. Epub 2018 Jun 11.
Quantification of the burden of overweight on the healthcare system is becoming increasingly urgent for health policy, but accurate estimates are hard to obtain.
In order to assess healthcare utilisation and expenditure of overweight and non-overweight children, we linked, on an individual basis, data on body mass index from a birth cohort study with administrative health insurance claims data. In children aged 14-15 years, we compared utilisation and expenditure on general practice care, dental care, hospital/specialist care, prescribed medication, allied healthcare and mental healthcare of overweight children (overweight at age 11 and 14, n=80) and non-overweight children (no overweight at age 11 and 14, n=1253).
For overweight children, mean 1-year healthcare expenditure was €837 per child and for non-overweight children €616. This difference was mainly due to significant differences in utilisation of hospital care (49% vs 37%) and mental healthcare (14% vs 7%) and to a lesser extent to higher expenditure per user.
Our results indicate the potential value of linking survey data to claims data in order to obtain insight into the healthcare costs of childhood overweight. Further studies should elucidate whether the observed differences are causally related to overweight.
超重对医疗体系负担的量化对于卫生政策变得日益紧迫，但准确的估计很难获得。
为了评估超重和非超重儿童的医疗保健利用和支出，我们将一项出生队列研究中的体重指数数据与行政健康保险索赔数据进行了个体链接。在 14-15 岁的儿童中，我们比较了超重儿童（11 岁和 14 岁时超重，n=80）和非超重儿童（11 岁和 14 岁时无超重，n=1253）在一般实践护理、牙科护理、医院/专科护理、规定药物、辅助医疗和心理健康护理方面的利用和支出。
对于超重儿童，每儿童的平均 1 年医疗保健支出为 837 欧元，而非超重儿童为 616 欧元。这种差异主要是由于医院护理（49%比 37%）和心理健康护理（14%比 7%）利用率的显著差异造成的，而用户的人均支出差异则较小。
我们的研究结果表明，将调查数据与索赔数据进行链接以获得儿童超重的医疗保健成本的见解具有潜在价值。进一步的研究应该阐明观察到的差异是否与超重有因果关系。
