Korean J Prev Med.  2002 Feb;35(1):1-12.

Socioeconomic Costs of Obesity for Korean Adults

• Jeong BG
• Moon OR
• Kim NS
• Kang JH
• Yoon TH
• Lee SY
• Lee SJ

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
To estimate the socioeconomic costs of obesity in Korea, 1998.
METHODS
The 1998 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1998 NHNES) data was used and 10,880 persons who had taken health examinations were selected for study. Essential hypertension, NIDDM (non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), dyslipidemia, osteoarthritis, coronary heart disease, stroke were included as obesity related disease. The data of direct costs of obesity was obtained from the National Federation of Medical Insurance. The category of indirect costs was the loss of productivity caused by premature death and admission, time costs, traffic costs, nursing fees due to obesity. Multiple logistic regression model was developed to estimate prevalence odds ratio by obesity class adjusted demographic and socio-ecnomic factors and calculate PAF (Population Attributable Fraction) of obesity on obesity related disease. And we finally calculated the socioeconomic costs of obesity in relation to BMI with PAF.
RESULTS
The direct costs of obesity were 2,126 billion~965 billion Won in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, and the indirect costs of obesity were 2,099 billion~1,086 billion Won. Consequently, in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, the socioeconomic costs of obesity were 4,225 billion~2,050 billion Won, which corresponded to about 0.094% ~0.046% of GDP and 1.88%~0.91 of total health care costs in Korea.
CONCLUSIONS
Obesity represents a major health problem with significant economic implications for the society. This results are conservative estimates as far as all obesity related disease and all health care and indirect costs were not included due to missing information. Further studies are needed to caculate socioeconomic costs of obesity more exactly.

Keyword

Obesity; Obesity related disease; Socioeconomic costs

MeSH Terms

Adult*
Coronary Disease
Delivery of Health Care
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Dyslipidemias
Efficiency
Fees and Charges
Guanosine Diphosphate
Health Care Costs
Humans
Hypertension
Insurance
Korea
Logistic Models
Medically Uninsured
Mortality, Premature
Nursing
Nutrition Surveys
Obesity*
Odds Ratio
Osteoarthritis
Prevalence
Stroke
Guanosine Diphosphate