Effects of childhood obesity on hospital care and costs, 1999-2005.
Childhood obesity is increasingly recognized as an epidemic, but the economic consequences have not been well quantified. We evaluated trends in obesity-associated hospitalizations, charges, and costs using 1999-2005 data from a nationally representative sample of admissions to U.S. hospitals. We detected a near-doubling in hospitalizations with a diagnosis of obesity between 1999 and 2005 and an increase in costs from $125.9 million to 237.6 million (in 2005 dollars) between 2001 and 2005. Medicaid appears to bear a large burden of hospitalizations for conditions that occur along with obesity, while private payers pay a greater portion of hospitalization costs to treat obesity itself.
Trasande
Leonardo
L
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, NY, USA. leo.trasande@mssm.edu
Liu
Yinghua
Y
Fryer
George
G
Weitzman
Michael
M
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008484:Medicaid; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009765:Obesity / Q000191:economics* / Q000628:therapy; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult