Modeling The Economic And Health Impact Of Increasing Children’s Physical Activity In The United States

Increasing physical activity among children is a potentially important public health intervention. Quantifying the economic and health effects of the intervention would help decision makers understand its impact and priority. Using a computational simulation model that we developed to represent all...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health Affairs 2017-05, Vol.36 (5), p.902-908
Main Authors: Lee, Bruce Y., Adam, Atif, Zenkov, Eli, Hertenstein, Daniel, Ferguson, Marie C., Wang, Peggy I., Wong, Michelle S., Wedlock, Patrick, Nyathi, Sindiso, Gittelsohn, Joel, Falah-Fini, Saeideh, Bartsch, Sarah M., Cheskin, Lawrence J., Brown, Shawn T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Body mass index
Body weight
Cardiovascular disease
Childhood obesity
Children
Children & youth
Childrens health
College professors
Combustion
Computer applications
Computer simulation
Cost engineering
Decision makers
Decision making
Diabetes
Disease prevention
Economic models
Economics
Exercise
Experiments
Health care
Health care expenditures
Health education
Health promotion
Impact analysis
Intervention
Lifetime
Mathematical models
Obesity
Overweight
Participation
Physical activity
Physical fitness
Physical training
Population
Present value
Productivity
Public health
Risk factors
Simulation
Youth
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Summary:Increasing physical activity among children is a potentially important public health intervention. Quantifying the economic and health effects of the intervention would help decision makers understand its impact and priority. Using a computational simulation model that we developed to represent all US children ages 8-11 years, we estimated that maintaining the current physical activity levels (only 31.9 percent of children get twenty-five minutes of high-calorie-burning physical activity three times a week) would result each year in a net present value of $1.1 trillion in direct medical costs and $1.7 trillion in lost productivity over the course of their lifetimes. If 50 percent of children would exercise, the number of obese and overweight youth would decrease by 4.18 percent, averting $8.1 billion in direct medical costs and $13.8 billion in lost productivity. Increasing the proportion of children who exercised to 75 percent would avert $16.6 billion and $23.6 billion, respectively.
ISSN:0278-2715
1544-5208
DOI:10.1377/hlthaff.2016.1315