Prevention of obesity: is it worth it?

BackgroundTackling of obesity is an increasingly important public health priority. It needs a broad range of responses at all levels across a complex system, but action is constrained by a very restricted evidence base of effective interventions. Pressure is growing within an increasingly financially constrained health system to show that activities provide value for money. The traditional approach to the assessment of cost-effectiveness is built from knowledge of effectiveness. Commissioners might therefore be reluctant to fund activities to tackle obesity, and the range of those that are funded is likely to be skewed towards those that are amenable to traditional assessment of effectiveness, which might not be the most appropriate set of approaches. We set out to develop an economic model that would allow commissioners and others to make objective judgments about interventions for which robust data on effectiveness are lacking.