USC Schaeffer Center and University of Minnesota researchers found that study participants and not using a college degree had even larger employment gains from lifestyle changes really useful by specialists.

Study takeaways:

• Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study reveals that intensive lifestyle intervention to forestall the progression and complications of type 2 diabetes is related to higher employment.
• Lifestyle intervention was related to a 4% increase in employment overall, and a 7% increase amongst participants with lower than a university degree.
• Findings suggest labor market productivity needs to be considered when evaluating the fee effectiveness of interventions to regulate chronic diseases.

Intensive lifestyle intervention for individuals with type 2 diabetes – including weekly counseling on weight loss plan and exercise – is related to increased employment, in response to a recent study by the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health published today in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers found that employment increased 4% overall amongst study participants who underwent sessions with health and behavior experts who advised various lifestyle changes to forestall the progression and complications from the disease. Employment increased 7% amongst those with lower than a university degree.

Study participants who had type 2 diabetes and who were chubby or obese were randomized to 2 groups. One group received an intensive lifestyle intervention including weekly one-on-one sessions with counselors, dieticians, exercise specialists, and behavioral health specialists in the primary six months, decreasing to a monthly basis by the fourth 12 months. The control group received group-based diabetes education and support sessions 3 times annually through the first 4 years, with one annual session thereafter.

The study cited prior work indicating the intensive lifestyle intervention’s effect on weight (8% reduction in the primary 12 months of the trial), physical fitness (10% increase in metabolic equivalents in the primary 4 years of the trial), and mobility loss (48% reduction in the primary 4 years of the trial).

Study authors noted that improvements in physical function could also be more necessary for participants with more physically demanding jobs, who’re also less prone to have a university degree.

The cohort study is among the many first to link clinical trial data with Social Security Administration records to raised understand the association between effective chronic disease management and labor market outcomes.

A complete of three,091 trial participants (age 45 to 75) with type 2 diabetes who were chubby or obese were linked with Social Security data to find out whether the interventions impacted employment, earnings, and receipt of disability advantages during and after the intervention.

The research was conducted as an ancillary study to the Look AHEAD (Motion for Health in Diabetes) randomized clinical trial, which analyzed whether intentional weight reduction reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in chubby individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Quotes:

“Our study’s novel approach – linking trial data with administrative histories on employment, earnings, and disability – demonstrated the long-term economic return to raised lifestyle management,” said Dana Goldman, dean and C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper chair of the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the co-director of the USC Schaeffer Center, who served as a principal investigator for the study.

“Our results contribute to the continuing scientific inquiry into how health affects socioeconomic status and supply evidence that improving health later in life might also have positive economic advantages by extending the flexibility to work,” said lead writer and other principal investigator Peter Huckfeldt, Vernon E. Weckwerth Professor in Healthcare Administration Leadership, University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Source:

University of Southern California

Journal reference:

Huckfeldt, P. J., et al. (2023) Association of Intensive Lifestyle Intervention for Type 2 Diabetes With Labor Market Outcomes. JAMA Internal Medicine. doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.3283.