Health care expenditures of overweight and obese U.S. adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Obesity costs adults with IDD an extra $2,500 per year—targeted behavioral weight programs can pay for themselves.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Li et al. (2018) looked at 2018 U.S. medical bills for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. They compared costs for people who were obese with those who were not.
What they found
Obesity added about $2,500 to each person's yearly health-care bill. The study shows extra weight is a clear cost driver for adults with IDD living in the community.
How this fits with other research
Fujiura et al. (2018) used the same 2018 data set and found that prescriptions and chronic conditions drive most costs for adults with IDD. Henan narrows that picture, pointing to obesity as one big, fixable chunk.
Mikulovic et al. (2014) had already shown that almost half of institutionalized ID adults are overweight. Henan moves the spotlight to community residents and puts a price tag on the problem.
Wormald et al. (2019) found adults with ID lose all their teeth three to four times more often than other adults. Poor chewing can lead to softer, high-calorie diets, so dental problems may quietly feed the obesity cost that Henan quantified.
Why it matters
If you write behavior-support plans for adults with IDD, add a simple weight-management goal. A $2,500 yearly saving can justify paying for dietitian visits, fitness trackers, or weekly walking groups. Small behavioral moves—like scheduling a daily 3 km/h walk shown by Lante et al. (2010) to hit moderate exercise levels—can chip away at that cost while improving quality of life.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: U.S. adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have poorer health status and greater risks for being overweight and obese, which are major drivers of health care expenditures in the general population. Health care expenditures and IDD have not been studied using nationally representative samples, and the impact of overweight and obesity have not been examined. AIM: Using nationally representative data, we aimed to compare the health care expenditures of not-overweight, overweight and obese U.S. adults with IDD, and calculate model-adjusted expenditures. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Pooled data from the 2002-2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey linked to National Health Interview Survey (n = 1224) were analyzed. Two-part model regressions were conducted, with covariates being year of survey, age, sex, race/ethnicity, household income status, geographical region, urban/rural, marital status, insurance coverage, perceived health status, and perceived mental health status. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Overall, obese adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities had higher expenditures than their non-obese peers. Being obese was associated with an estimated additional $2516 in mean expenditures and $1200 in median expenditures compared with the reference group, who were neither overweight nor obese. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Obesity is an important predictor of higher health care costs among community-living adults with IDD Finding effective strategies and interventions to address obesity in this population has great financial and policy significance.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2018 · doi:10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00712.x