The Obesity Toolkit

Obesity poses an increasingly significant health risk in the United States and worldwide, contributing to an estimated 400,000 U.S. deaths and accounting for 9 percent of all health care expenditures, or about $93 billion in 2002 dollars.

Because the obesity epidemic affects many working-age Americans and their dependents, employers bear much of obesity's costs. Moreover, the toll on employee productivity is substantial, with more than twice the number of workers compensation claims and more than 10-fold the number of lost workdays among obese workers compared with their normal weight counterparts.

But despite the health and financial magnitude of the problem, limited information exists on insurance benefits and programmatic efforts aimed at obesity. From the limited literature on this subject, it appears benefits that aggressively target early identification and management of obesity are uncommon and inconsistently designed.

In response, the Care Continuum Alliance, with support from sanofi-aventis and Health & Technology Vector Inc., developed an approach to designing an obesity benefit: the Value-Based Benefit Design for Obesity and Comorbidities: A Practical Manual. The manual and supporting documents on this CD-ROM and available for download here collectively provide a valuable reference for employers, health plans and other stakeholders working to mitigate the adverse consequences of obesity and overweight.

The Care Continuum Alliance recognized that purchasers would favor benefit designs that conform to their unique needs, budgets, culture and values. So, rather than develop a single, universal finished product, the Care Continuum Alliance instead worked to gather and summarize high-quality information through the Obesity Factbook; describe an approach to benefit design, the Project Design Monograph; and offer an actuarial format, the Obesity Rider Pricing Template.

By selecting, summarizing and modeling information pertinent to benefit designers, The Care Continuum Alliance hopes not only to compress future benefit plan development time, but also to steer attention toward interventions supported by scientific evidence and national practice guidelines.

The Care Continuum Alliance produced the Value-Based Benefit Design for Obesity and Comorbidities manual as part of a broader research and education initiative focused on obesity with comorbidities. Other products of that initiative contained in this collection include:

• The Care Continuum Alliance definition of obesity with comorbid conditions—the first of its kind in population health improvement—that forms the foundation for much of the broader obesity initiative's work.
• A collaborative literature review by the Care Continuum Alliance and the National Committee for Quality Assurance of obesity assessment and management options for adults (originally published in the Care Continuum Alliance peer-reviewed journal, Population Health Management).
• A comprehensive literature review by the Care Continuum Alliance and the Department of Health Policy of Jefferson Medical College on the evidence base for effectiveness of obesity management programs.

This toolkit includes a Pathway/Map document to aid its efficient use. It outlines a four-step process for designing and carrying out an obesity program.

Note: To download the toolkit, you must complete a brief user agreement. The Care Continuum Alliance respects your privacy and will not share this information with third parties or use it for commercial purposes.

Complete user agreement and download Obesity Toolkit »