Costs and benefits of a school-based health intervention in Portugal

• Published in: Health promotion international Vol. 34; no. 6; pp. 1141 - 1148
• Main Authors: Vieira, Margarida, Carvalho, Graça Simões de
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 01.12.2019
• Subjects: Childhood obesity; Ciências da Educação; Ciências Sociais; Intervention costs; Science & Technology; school-based intervention; cost-consequence analysis; intervention costs; childhood obesity
• ISSN: 0957-4824; 1460-2245
• DOI: 10.1093/heapro/day085

School-based programmes for preventing childhood obesity have been shown to be effective in improving eating habits and nutritional status, but few intervention programmes with a controlled design have included an economic evaluation. In this study, we conducted a cost-consequence analysis to evaluate the costs and the health benefits of the ‘Planning Health in School’ programme (PHS-pro) implemented in the Northern region of Portugal to 449 children of 10–14 years old. Previous study has showed that after PHS-pro, several anthropometric measures significantly improved in the intervention group (height, waist circumference and waist-height ratio) compared with the control group, followed by significant improvements on soft drinks, fruit and vegetables daily consumptions. Costs were estimated according the two phases of the programme: designing and preparation of schools, and school setting implementation, and included all the direct costs on human and material resources. PHS-pro total costs were estimated as 7915.53€/year with an intervention cost of 36.14€/year/child attending the programme. This is much lower than the direct costs for treating an obese adult in Portugal, which was calculated as 3849.15€/year. A scale-up costing projection for implementing the PHS-pro to a larger young population was estimated to be even lower: 18.18€/year/child. This cost-consequence analysis provided evidence that the PHS-pro was economically feasible especially if compared with the medical costs for treating adult obesity. The PHS-pro can be a beneficial investment and may give a promising contribution to addressing overweight over childhood and adolescence, which are developmental stages that determine adulthood chronic diseases. Financial Support by CIEC (Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho; FCT R&D unit 317, Portugal) by the Strategic Project UID/CED/00317/2013, with financial support of National Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the COMPETE 2020 - Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562.