Abstract
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the worldwide obesity rate has tripled since 1975. In Europe, more than half of the population is overweight and obese. Around 2.8 million people die each year worldwide as a result of conditions linked to being overweight or obese. This study aimed to analyze the policies, approaches, and solutions that address the social and health unmet needs of obese patients, at different levels, in order to simulate the definition of an integrated approach, and to provide and share examples of innovative solutions supporting health promotion, disease prevention, and integration of services to improve the collaboration between the different health and care stakeholders involved across the country and in the lives of obese patients. A collaborative approach involving various levels of government and regional experts from different European countries was applied to identify, explore, and evaluate different aspects of the topic, from the innovation perspective and focusing on a European and a regional vision. Currently, people prefer more foods rich in fats, sugars, and salt/sodium than fruits, vegetables, and fiber. This behavior leads to a significant negative impact on their health-related quality of life. Changes in healthcare systems, healthy policy, and approaches to patient care and better implementation of the different prevention strategies between all the stakeholders are needed, taking advantage of the digital transformation of health and care. Such changes can support obese patients in their fight against an unhealthy lifestyle and at the same time reduce healthcare costs.
Highlights
This article is an open access articleObesity has become a global challenge, and its prevalence has tripled worldwide since1975 [1]
The objective of this study was to analyze the policies, approaches, and solutions that address the social and health unmet needs of obese patients, at different levels, in order to simulate the definition of an integrated approach, taking into consideration the experiences already adopted, and to provide and share examples of innovative solutions supporting health promotion, disease prevention, and integration of services to improve the collaboration between the different health and care stakeholders involved across the country and in the lives of obese patients
Digital health provides concrete and valuable options to enhance health and well-being, supporting the development of national programs to improve healthcare delivery and strategies, and to ensure universal health coverage and availability of good health data and reporting related to Sustainable development goals (SDGs) [76,80], and identifies digital services to promote equitable and universal access to health for all related to GPW13 [80]
Summary
This article is an open access articleObesity has become a global challenge, and its prevalence has tripled worldwide since1975 [1]. This article is an open access article. Obesity has become a global challenge, and its prevalence has tripled worldwide since. Overweight and obesity are associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenditures, with a significant negative impact on health-related quality of life [2,3,4]. It has been estimated that, in 2016, 1.9 billion adults 18 years or older were overweight, of whom over 650 million were obese.
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