The Impact of Overweight and Obesity on the Direct Medical Costs of Truck Drivers

Martin, Bradley C. PharmD, PhD; Church, Timothy S. MD, MPH, PhD; Bonnell, Ron BS; Ben-Joseph, Rami PhD; Borgstadt, Ted BS

Author Information

From the Division of Pharmaceutical Evaluation and Policy (Dr Martin), University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Ark; Pennington Biomedical Research Center (Dr Church), Baton Rouge, La; Human Centric Software (Mr Bonnell), Minneapolis, Minn; Health Outcomes (Dr Ben-Joseph), Sanofi-Aventis, Bridgewater, NJ; and Trestle Tree (Mr Borgstadt), Springdale, Ark.

Address correspondence to: Bradley C. Martin, PharmD, PhD, Division of Pharmaceutical Evaluation and Policy, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 W. Markham Street, Slot 522, Little Rock, AR 72205; E-mail:[email protected].

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine51(2):p 180-184, February 2009. |DOI:10.1097/JOM.0b013e3181965d6e

Abstract

Objective:

The primary goal of the study was to quantify health care costs of truckers across categories of normal weight, overweight, and obese.

Methods:

Health care claims data from a transportation logistics company were obtained from 2004 to 2005 and were merged with body mass index measures. A robust multivariate ordinary least squares regression model was used to adjust for demographic and occupational variables.

Results:

Two thousand eight hundred forty-nine truckers had a mean annual total health care cost of $1785. Unadjusted trimmed total cost for overweight subjects ($1613) and obese subjects ($1792) were significantly higher than for normal weight subjects ($1012;P < 0.05). After multivariate adjustment, obese and overweight subjects had on average, $591 (P = 0.031) and $383 (P = 0.188) higher total trimmed health care cost than normal weight subjects.

Conclusion:

Both overweight and obese individuals had higher health care costs and higher prevalence of hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and hypertension than their normal weight counterparts.