Health Economics of Preventive Nutrition

Health economics examines both the costs of care (economic burden) as well as the potential costs savings of disease/treatment avoidance. The objectives of this chapter are to first examine the current epidemiological data that describe the health status of adults and the economic burden of disease; second, to review the potential for disease/adverse event prevention associated with consumption of healthy diets/nutritional interventions in both developed and developing nations, and finally, to look at the cost-effectiveness of preventive nutrition strategies in relevant populations. The major diseases/conditions examined in this chapter include obesity, nutritionally related adverse pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, cancer, age-related blindness, and osteoporosis. Our goal is to document the totality and the consistency of the data and then attempt to quantify the savings that could be seen once preventive nutrition strategies are put in place.