C_17_pubblicazioni_2220_allegato

Economic impacts and prevention policies section 5
THE HEALTH AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS
OF PREVENTION POLICIES
POLICIES TO IMPROVE DIETS, INCREASE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND PREVENT OBESITY
Mass media campaigns have been shown to have a positive, moderate effect on the increase
of physical activity in targeted populations with a good cost-effectiveness ratio. Counselling in
primary care to encourage physical activity and dietary improvements, despite the higher cost,
has been shown to be an effective and cost-effective policy. Some school-based programmes
that combine actions on physical activity and diet are more efficient than interventions in a
single domain. Community-based interventions focussing on walking in particular (using pedometers)
have been shown to be effective as well as cost-effective in the short term (Figure 10).
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Millions of the years
40
30
20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Years from start of prevention programmes
Figure 10 - Years of Life Free of Cancer Gained through Prevention
Source: Analysis based on OECD Chronic Disease Prevention (CDP) model. It includes colorectal, lung and female breast cancer
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