World Bank Group Consultant, Colorado Springs, Colo., United States of America.
Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Mar 8;17(3):e0264993. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264993. eCollection 2022.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia has been rising. Although the health burden of excess weight is well established, little is known about the economic burden.
To assess the economic burden-both direct medical costs and the value of absenteeism and presenteeism-resulting from overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia.
The cost of overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia was estimated from a societal perspective using an epidemiologic approach.
Data were obtained from previously published studies and secondary databases.
Overweight/obesity-attributable costs were calculated for six major noncommunicable diseases; sensitivity analyses were conducted for key model parameters.
The impact of overweight and obesity for these diseases is found to directly cost a total of $3.8 billion, equal to 4.3 percent of total health expenditures in Saudi Arabia in 2019. Estimated overweight and obesity-attributable absenteeism and presenteeism costs a total of $15.5 billion, equal to 0.9 percent of GDP in 2019.
Even when limited to six diseases and a subset of total indirect costs, results indicate that overweight and obesity are a significant economic burden in Saudi Arabia. Future studies should identify strategies to reduce the health and economic burden resulting from excess weight in Saudi Arabia.
超重和肥胖在沙特阿拉伯的流行率一直在上升。尽管超重对健康的负担已经得到充分证实，但对其经济负担知之甚少。
评估超重和肥胖给沙特阿拉伯带来的经济负担——包括直接医疗费用以及旷工和出勤的价值损失。
采用流行病学方法，从社会角度评估沙特超重和肥胖的经济负担。
数据来自先前发表的研究和二手数据库。
计算了六种主要非传染性疾病中与超重/肥胖相关的成本；对关键模型参数进行了敏感性分析。
超重和肥胖对这些疾病的影响直接导致总花费 38 亿美元，相当于 2019 年沙特阿拉伯总卫生支出的 4.3%。估计超重和肥胖导致的旷工和出勤价值损失总计 155 亿美元，相当于 2019 年 GDP 的 0.9%。
即使仅考虑六种疾病和总间接成本的一部分，结果表明超重和肥胖是沙特阿拉伯的重大经济负担。未来的研究应确定减少超重对沙特阿拉伯健康和经济负担的策略。
