That is the title of a study presented this week at the Obesity Week conference. This is work used a distributional cost effectiveness analysis approach for measuring the value of semaglutide 2.4 mg for the treatment of patients with obesity and overweight. It was conducted with co-authors Joshua Toliver, Mads Faurby, Jaehong Kim, Sanjana Muthukrishnan and Sean D. Sullivan. The plain language summary is below:
Why does it matter? The burden of obesity and overweight does not affect all populations equally. Disadvantaged populations face a greater proportion of burden relative to other populations. Weight loss may help to reduce this burden
How does it work? Using a distributional cost effectiveness analysis methodology, we looked at the effect that treatment with semaglutide would have on reducing health inequality based on race and ethnicity, income, and level of education
What did we find? In this scenario where everyone has full access to various obesity treatments, we found that treatment with semaglutide reduces health inequality, or the excessive burden of obesity and overweight faced by disadvantaged populations. When compared with diet and exercise alone, the value of reduced health inequality with semaglutide ranged from $0.4 billion to $2.9 billion
This was also covered in a recent STAT News article. In the news article, they summarize our summary as follows:
One study by Novo researchers presented here does try to look at health inequality. It found that in a scenario where people all have access to Wegovy at the same price, the drug could reduce inequality since lower-income groups experience higher rates of obesity. The value of the reduced inequality could reach $3 billion, the study said.