‘Planning Health in School’ Programme: rational analysis of costs and benefits

Abstract

Few school-based intervention programmes for preventing childhood obesity with a controlled design have included an economic evaluation. This study analyses the costs and benefits of the ‘Planning Health in School’ programme (PHS-pro) for promoting healthy eating in Portuguese grade-6 children. Height, weight, waist circumference (WC), BMI, and behaviour changes in 219 intervention children (IC) were compared with 230 control children (CC). A standard economic evaluation determined the cost-benefits of the PHS-pro. The intervention costs were estimated and compared to the direct costs of treating obese adults in Portugal (Ribeiro V. 2010). After PHS-pro, the IC increased in height significantly (p<0.001), the WC had reduced significantly (p=0.015) compared with CC. Furthermore, the IC consumed significantly fewer soft drinks (p=0.043), ate more fruit and vegetables daily compared with CC. PHS-pro intervention cost was estimated as €36.14/child. This is much lower than the direct costs for treating an obese ad t in Portugal, which was calculated as €3849.15/year. A costing projection for implementing the PHS-pro over a full school year to a larger young population was estimated as €18.18/child. The PHS-pro can be a beneficial investment to prevent overweight in childhood and adolescence, which are developmental stages that determine adulthood chronic diseases.