Table of Contents
Past and Present Funding Initiatives on Globesity
Public efforts and funds on programs aimed to reduce the population level of global obesity in the past have had a major impact. Exploration of the causes and identifying alternative have helped to control global obesity in the past. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does funding and provides money through grants throughout the state and local communities to prevent adult and childhood obesity. The CDC has a division of nutrition, physical activities, and obesity’s (DNPAO) which helps to resource high obesity programs through funding towards colleges and universities throughout the United States. In 2014, the total funded amount of 8.2 million was distributed to those who have a 40% prevalence of adult obesity. The funded grants were utilized through programs that helped people who had a prevalence of obesity to help improve physical activities and nutrition, reduce obesity, prevent and control diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
State physical activity and nutrition (SPAN) funded programs implemented evidence-based strategies to improve nutrition and physical activities in state and local levels. Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) provides federal funding to states to provide nutritious food to the children. This cost is reimbursed by the federal fund. It covers 4.2 million children and 13,000 adults (The State of Obesity, 2019).
The Women Infants and Children Program (WIC) is a special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children for the low-income categories and is one of the largest federal nutrition programs in the nation. This program helped to reduce national obesity rates. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was known in the earlier day’s food stamp program. SNAP-ED is nutrition education component program under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)encourages healthy purchases.
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Past and Present Quality Initiative in Globesity
Agency for health care research and quality focused on childhood obesity which was through the pediatric quality measures program (PQMD). The quality measures help evaluate and improve healthcare quality for children. It focuses on issues of childhood obesity, measures to assess BMI of pregnant women, and it follows up visits of obese children with weight-related comorbidities. It also discusses weight concerns to children and their parents. The AHRQ, National Health Care Quality, and Disparities report focus on exercise and healthy eating habits of children and families.
Finally, it may be concluded that obesity has become a major public health concern. There are numerous efforts to improve the health care system, but the use of health care quality measures is restricted. The main topic of Obesity Measure focuses on BMI screening and patient counseling. Measure gaps may also exist, but additional evidence is mandatory to identify whether there’s an impact on the patient.
Impacts on Uninsured and Insured in Health Care
“Health Insurance is a direct driver of healthcare access for prevention for preventive and chronic care.” It is estimated that those who live uninsured comprises of 47.9 million non-elderly U.S. citizens (Staiano et al., 2016.) When health access is limited, people with chronic conditions of obesity will not be treated appropriately. Individual who live in the low socio-economic background will not often have accessibility and motivation for physical activities in the neighborhood. Uninsured may not have knowledge and understanding about their diet appropriate for their particular condition, but the insured individual can have a consultation with a certified dietician for diet requirements. The rise of globesity will be followed with comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer.
The insured individual always seeks a preventive measure and access follow up visit unlike the uninsured who will be hesitant for preventive treatment. In the study by Access and Use of Medical Care among Obese Persons (Fontaine et al.,2012), it is assumed that insured obese persons have more access to medical care in comparison to the uninsured. But there is also a clear relationship between socioeconomic status which measures income, education, occupational status, and health. Medical services and frequency of visit health care access tend to increase with obesity in an insured individual. The reason being is that the individual needs to develop strategies to manage comorbidities hence the cost of the services rendered to an obese person tend to grow higher and may have pay higher co-payments and will not be compliant to the treatment plan.
Health Care Comparison
Canada has a healthcare system which is known as the universal health care system. The health care system is publicly funded through the funds of federal and provincial taxes. Canadian Health Act (CHA) creates guidelines for each territory and province to utilize the Canadian government fund. However, the United States has a private healthcare system where the plans are provided by private companies. There are certain instances where the government steps into those conditions of disabilities, unemployment and low poverty level. There were many who were not insured in the United States. The Affordable Health Care Act was passed in order to have health care accessible o more citizen.
This provided premium tax credits to those whose household income was 100% and 400% above the federal poverty level. The study conducted by Kyle, et.al (2019) noted that most people in the U.S and Canada was not covered by the health plans for evidenced-based obesity care plans. People in both countries consider that the health plans would not cover the evidence-based guideline of medical weight management, Nutrition therapy through a registered dietician, bariatric surgery and the obesity medication, the first line of treatment for any chronic disease is managed through evidence-based care. Obesity, if treated in the early onset, will prevent diabetes, control blood pressure and associated cancer.
Reference
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). State and Local Program. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/state-local-programs/index.html
- Fontaine, R.K., Bartlett, J. S., (2012) Access and Use of Medical Care among Obese Persons, Obesity Research Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2000.49
- Hernandez, M. I (2017) AHRQ’s Role in Combating Obesity, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. Retrieved from: https://www.ahrq.gov/news/blog/ahrqviews/ahrq-role-in-combating-obesity.html
- Kyle, K.T., Salas, R.X., Nadglowski, F.J., Standford, C. F,. (2017) Most People in Canada and the U.S. Report that Health Plans Will Not Cover Evidence-Based Obesity Care Retrieved from: https://conscienhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HealthPlanCoverage.pdf
- Staiano, A. E., Morrell, M., Hsia, D. S., Hu, G., & Katzmarzyk, P. T. (2016). The Burden of Obesity, Elevated Blood Pressure, and Diabetes in Uninsured and Underinsured Adolescents. Metabolic syndrome and related disorders, 14(9), 437–441. doi:10.1089/met.2016.0025
- The State of Obesity (2019) Priority Policies for Reducing Childhood and Adult Obesity https://www.ahrq.gov/news/blog/ahrqviews/ahrq-role-in-combating-obesity.html
