Team Nesta at HealthLumen
Obesity continues to pose a major public health and economic challenge in the UK. In England in 2022, 67% of men and 61% of women aged 16 years and over were estimated to be living with overweight or obesity [1], at an annual cost to the UK of £98 billion [2].
As part of their ‘A Healthy Life’ mission, Nesta – the UK’s innovation agency for social good – have created a Blueprint for halving the prevalence of obesity in the UK by 2030. Nesta commissioned HealthLumen to model the health and economic impact of 32 obesity policies in the UK.
Applying HealthLumen’s well-validated microsimulation model [3] the study found that, of the 32 policies analysed, 9 were cost-saving – meaning that the money saved by reducing the burden of disease is greater than the cost of policy implementation itself – and 3 were cost-effective*, where the costs of implementing the policy is deemed to be justified by the health benefits, despite the policy not saving money.
This study highlights which health policies are most likely to be effective in decreasing the prevalence of obesity, with fiscal policies expected to be particularly cost beneficial. This research has informed Nesta’s digital Blueprint tool – which provides key stakeholders with data on the health, economic, and feasibility impacts of various obesity interventions – aligning with Nesta’s mission of halving obesity rates in the UK by 2030.
View Nesta’s blueprint for halving obesity
These results are the most comprehensive analysis to-date of the effectiveness of a wide number of health policies in relation to each other, and suggest that several of these policies could effectively reduce the prevalence of obesity – and thereby lower the incidence of related diseases and improve quality-adjusted life years – whilst being cost-effective or cost-saving.
These findings align with literature suggesting that the anticipated monetary benefits from additional policies aimed at reducing overweight and obesity – in addition to those that have already been implemented in the UK such as the successful Soft Drinks Industry Levy – are estimated to reach over £60 billion in health benefits and nearly £4.5 billion in NHS savings [4].
*Cost effectiveness was determined at the threshold of £20,000/QALY (quality-adjusted life year, where one QALY is equal to one year lived in perfect health)
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