Economic benefits of reducing childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity in Australia.

Objectives: The Australian Government, through the National Obesity Strategy 2022-2032, has set an aspirational goal of reducing the prevalence of childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity by 5% by 2030 (from 25% to 20%). Our objective was to quantify the long-term economic benefits of achieving this goal.

Methods: Using a microsimulation model and a synthetic cohort of Australian children and adolescents aged 4-17 years, we estimated the excess per capita lifetime costs of overweight and obesity.

The effects of duration of any breastfeeding on body mass index in Australian children: Exploration of health, economic and equity impacts.

Background: Breastfeeding is a protective measure against childhood overweight and obesity. However, many children are not breastfed the recommended duration, with those from disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to cease breastfeeding early.

Objectives: Investigate the association between duration of any breastfeeding and body mass index (BMI) and estimate the health, economic and equity impacts of increasing breastfeeding duration to at least 6 months.

SCORE: a randomised controlled trial evaluating shared care (general practitioner and oncologist) follow-up compared to usual oncologist follow-up for survivors of colorectal cancer.

Background: SCORE is the first randomised controlled trial (RCT) to examine shared oncologist and general practitioner (GP) follow-up for survivors of colorectal cancer (CRC). SCORE aimed to show that shared care (SC) was non-inferior to usual care (UC) on the EORTC QLQ-C30 Global Health Status/Quality of Life (GHQ-QoL) scale to 12 months.

Methods: The study recruited patients from five public hospitals in Melbourne, Australia between February 2017 and May 2021.

Application of a health technology assessment framework to digital health technologies that manage chronic disease: a systematic review.

Background: As health services increasingly make investment decisions in digital health technologies (DHTs), a DHT-specific and comprehensive health technology assessment (HTA) process is crucial in assessing value-for-money. Research in DHTs is ever-increasing, but whether it covers the content required for HTA is unknown.

Objectives: To summarize current trends in primary research on DHTs that manage chronic disease at home, particularly the coverage of content recommended for DHT-specific and comprehensive HTA.

Relationship between obesity and school absenteeism in Australian children: Implications for carer productivity.

Background: Economic evaluations of childhood obesity interventions are often used to assist decision making when presented with alternative course of action. Including indirect costs related to productivity losses is recommended; in children this would include school absenteeism. Our aim was to determine the association between school absenteeism and weight status among Australian children and estimate the indirect costs of this.

Health technology assessment for digital technologies that manage chronic disease: a systematic review.

Objective: A growing number of evaluation frameworks have emerged over recent years addressing the unique benefits and risk profiles of new classes of digital health technologies (DHTs). This systematic review aims to identify relevant frameworks and synthesize their recommendations into DHT-specific content to be considered when performing Health Technology Assessments (HTAs) for DHTs that manage chronic noncommunicable disease at home.

Methods: Searches were undertaken of Medline, Embase, Econlit, CINAHL, and The Cochrane Library (January 2015 to March 2020), and relevant gray literature (January 2015 to August 2020) using keywords related to HTA, evaluation frameworks, and DHTs.

Utility Decrements Associated with Adult Overweight and Obesity in Australia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Objective: The aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of health state utility decrements associated with overweight and obesity in adults 18 years and over, for use in modelled economic evaluations in Australia.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted in nine databases to identify studies that reported health state utility values by weight status. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to synthesise average utility decrements (from healthy weight) associated with overweight, all obesity and obesity classes 1, 2 and 3.

Looking backwards and forwards: tracking and persistence of weight status between early childhood and adolescence.

Background/objective: Many studies have shown that child BMI or weight status tracks over time, but the demographic predictors of high tracking have not been investigated. Our objective was to identify demographic predictors of persistence (duration) of healthy weight and overweight/obesity throughout childhood, and to examine whether tracking was age dependent.

Methods: We conducted secondary data analysis of 4606 children from the Birth cohort and 4983 children from the Kindergarten cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children with follow-up to age 12/13 and 16/17 years, respectively.