Association of Osteoarthritis Prevalence with Age and Obesity Factors in OECD Countries: Panel Regression Model.

Abstract

According to cross-sectional analysis studies supported by microdata, incidence of Osteoarthritis (OA) increases in parallel with ageing and obesity, which are common predictors of the disease. The aim of this study is to reveal whether ageing and obesity have an effect on the increase in OA prevalence by analyzing cross-country data from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We used static panel data regression analysis for 36 countries for the period between 2000 and 2017. Along with OA prevalence, we used a group of people with a BMI ≤ 30 within the population as obesity indicator and those aged +65 within the population as ageing indicator. We calculated the effect of ageing and obesity on OA prevalence using STATA 13 software. Both variable coefficients, age, and obesity, respectively, were found to be positive and statistically significant at the 1% level. This study shows that both ageing, and obesity contribute to an increase in the OA prevalence based on macro data from 36 OECD countries. These findings have significant implications that can be used by both the public and policymakers for preventing the OA. Adopting the preventive measures could contribute to decrease in health expenditures.