Counting the Lives of Persons Living with Obesity

Two Still LivesWe are seeing a subtle, but important shift in the way scholars of population health are looking at obesity and the people it affects. At one time, the implicit bias was to discount those who already have the disease. There’s little we can do for them was the thought behind this. Sometimes it was even stated explicitly. But now we see an important shift toward counting the lives of persons with obesity.

With a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Abhishek Pandey and colleagues provide an estimate of the lives that could be saved by opening up the access to obesity care that includes new obesity medicines. The number is 42,027 lives annually. Corresponding author Alison Galvani explains how important this is:

“Expanding access to these medications is not just a matter of improving treatment options but also a crucial public health intervention. Our findings underscore the potential to reduce mortality significantly by addressing financial and coverage barriers.”

Galvani is a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

A Range of Possible Outcomes

Of course, these are mere estimates of the effects that better access to care could have on population health. The authors provides a range for perspective. At current levels of utilization, they find that the new obesity medicines will prevent 8,592 deaths annually. If everyone who is medically eligible for these medicines could gain access, they say that obesity prevalence would decline and more than 50,000 lives could be saved every year. The authors are emphatic in their conclusions:

“Our findings provide compelling evidence for the transformative impact that expanded access to these medications could have on improving the public health of the nation. This underscores the urgency of addressing access barriers, including affordability, insurance coverage, and prescriber awareness. Such policies could galvanize a new era of American well-being and prosperity.”

This kind of thinking illustrates a radical shift in thinking – from discounting to counting the importance of the lives of persons with obesity. It will open the door to overcoming obesity and the harm it does to the health of so many people.

Click here for the new paper, here, here, and here for further perspective.

Two Still Lives, charcoal drawing by Lili Elbe / WikiArt

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October 18, 2024