Modelling population-level and targeted interventions of weight loss on chronic disease prevention in the Canadian population

Emilie Pianarosa; Meghan O'Neill; Kathy Kornas; Lori M Diemert; Christopher Tait; Laura C Rosella

doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2023.107673

Modelling population-level and targeted interventions of weight loss on chronic disease prevention in the Canadian population

Prev Med. 2023 Oct:175:107673. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2023.107673. Epub 2023 Aug 18.

Authors

Emilie Pianarosa¹, Meghan O'Neill¹, Kathy Kornas¹, Lori M Diemert¹, Christopher Tait¹, Laura C Rosella²

Affiliations

¹ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.
² Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada; ICES, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada; Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners, 100 Queensway West, Mississauga, ON L5B 1B8, Canada; Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Simcoe Hall, 1 King's College Cir, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada. Electronic address: laura.rosella@utoronto.ca.

PMID: 37597756
DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2023.107673

Abstract

Obesity is a known risk factor for major chronic diseases. Prevention of chronic disease is a top global priority. The study aimed to model scenarios of population-level and targeted weight loss interventions on 10-year projected risk of chronic disease in Canada using a population-level risk prediction algorithm. The validated Chronic Disease Population Risk Tool (CDPoRT) forecasts 10-year risk of chronic disease in the adult population. We applied CDPoRT to the 2013/14 Canadian Community Health Survey to generate prospective chronic disease estimates for adults 20 years and older in Canada (n = 83,220). CDPoRT was used to model the following scenarios: British Columbia's (BC) and Quebec's (QC) provincial population-level weight reduction targets, a population-level intervention that could achieve weight loss, targeted weight loss interventions for overweight and obese groups, and the combination of a population-level and targeted weight loss intervention. We estimated chronic disease risk reductions and number of cases prevented in each scenario compared with the baseline. At baseline, we predicted an 18.4% risk and 4,151,929 new cases of chronic disease in Canada over the 10-year period. Provincial weight loss targets applied to the Canadian population estimated chronic disease reductions of 0.6% (BC) and 0.1% (QC). The population-level intervention estimated a greater reduction in risk (0.2%), compared to the targeted interventions (0.1%). The combined approach estimated a 0.3% reduction in chronic disease risk. Our modelling predicted that population-level approaches that achieve weight loss in combination with targeted weight loss interventions can substantially decrease the chronic disease burden in Canada.

Keywords: Chronic disease; Interventions; Population health; Prevention; Public health; Risk prediction.