Title: The health and economic burden of poor diet and the impact of dietary policies to mitigate this burden: Generating actionable evidence and policy recommendations for Germany (PHfoodIMPACT)

Funding Body: Else Kröner-Fresenius-Zentrum für Ernährungsmedizin

Funding Period: 2024-2027

Partners: Prof. Hans Hauner (TUM School of Medicine and Health), Tandem project

Objectives:

We aim to: 

a) estimate the direct and indirect costs of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Germany, 

b) assess the proportion of such costs that is attributable to current dietary patterns in Germany, and 

c) project the health, economic and equity impacts of relevant dietary policy interventions in Germany to inform decision makers

Background:

In Germany, there are notable discrepancies between nutritional recommendations and actual intake levels; on average, too much sugar, salt and saturated fats are being consumed, while there is an insufficient intake of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. This pattern contributes to the large burden of obesity and diet-related NCDs, which lead to increased healthcare expenditures and productivity losses. 

Methods

We will first apply fixed-effects regression models or alternatively generalized estimating equations to German claims data to obtain per-capita excess costs for incident and prevalent NCD cases (aim 1). Further, we will advance and parametrize a microsimulation model (IMPACT_NCD) with German data (including demographic, dietary intake and clinical data as well as relative risk, cost and epidemiological estimates such as NCD incidence, prevalence and mortality rates) and assess the proportion of costs and disease burden attributable to the observed dietary patterns. (aim 2). Finally, we will use the model to project the health, economic and equity effects of food policies of interest (aim 3).