title: The impact of obesity on medication use and expenditures among nonelderly adults with asthma.
abstract: Obesity contributes substantially to health resource use and costs. This study examines the impact of obesity on medication use and expenditures among nonelderly adults with asthma using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Obese classes II/III individuals were more likely to have current asthma, seek treatment for asthma, use more medications, and have higher medication and health care expenditures compared with normal weight individuals. Multivariate results indicate that if obese classes II/III were normal weight the probability of asthma treatment would decrease by 8.0 percentage points. Conditional on any asthma treatment, if obese classes II/III were normal weight the mean number of total prescribed medications would decrease by 19.42 fills, and expected expenditures on total prescribed medications and health care would decrease by $1,738.68 and $3,682.58, respectively. These results suggest that, all else equal, reduction in body weight may help reduce health resource use and expenditures for nonelderly adults with asthma.
authors.forename: Eric M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Sarpong
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents / Q000191:economics* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents