The Clinical and Economic Burdens of Obesity and the Value of Weight Loss for an EMR-Derived US Cohort: A Modeling Study

Obesity-related comorbidities (ORCs) cause significant economic and clinical burdens for people with obesity and the US health care system. A reduction in weight at the population level may reduce incident ORC diagnoses and associated costs of treatment. The aim of this work is to describe obesity burden in the United States through the prevalence and direct treatment costs of ORCs, as well as the clinical and economic value of 15% weight loss in a population of adults with obesity. The IQVIA Ambulatory US electronic medical record database was used to create a cohort (7, 667, 023 individuals 20–69 years of age, body mass index of 30–50 kg/m2), utilized to characterize the prevalence of 10 ORCs. Direct treatment costs were collected from literature reports. A risk model was leveraged to estimate the number and cost of additional ORC diagnoses over 5 years from baseline through two scenarios: stable weight and 15% lower body weight at baseline for all members of the population. Prevalence, incidence, and cost data were scaled down to a representative subset of 100, 000 individuals. In 2022, the annual treatment costs for all 10 ORCs exceeded 918 million for the representative cohort. In a stable-weight scenario, these costs were estimated to increase to ≈1. 4 billion by 2027. With 15% lower body weight at baseline, 221 million in cumulative savings was estimated, corresponding to 2205 in savings/patient over 5 years. Consequently, weight loss in this population may correspond to significantly reduced numbers of incident ORC complications translating to substantial cost savings.