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. 2022 Jun;43(2):266-280.
doi: 10.1057/s41271-022-00344-y. Epub 2022 Apr 4.

Implementing federal food service guidelines in federal and private worksite cafeterias in the United States leads to improved health outcomes and is cost saving

Shafika Abrahams-Gessel  1 , Parke Wilde  2 , Fang Fang Zhang  2 , Lauren Lizewski  3 , Stephen Sy  1 , Junxiu Liu  2 , Mengyuan Ruan  4 , Yujin Lee  5 , Dariush Mozaffarian  2 , Renata Micha #  2 , Thomas Gaziano #  6   7
Affiliations

Implementing federal food service guidelines in federal and private worksite cafeterias in the United States leads to improved health outcomes and is cost saving

Shafika Abrahams-Gessel et al. J Public Health Policy. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Poor diet increases cardiometabolic disease risk, yet the impact of food service guidelines on employee health and its cost effectiveness is poorly understood. Federal food service guidelines (FFSG) aim to provide United States (U.S.) government employees with healthier food options. Using microsimulation modeling, we estimated changes in the incidence of cardiometabolic disease, related mortality, and the cost effectiveness of implementing FFSG in nationally representative model populations of government and private company employees across 5 years and lifetime. We based estimates on changes in workplace intake of six FFSG dietary targets and showed lifetime reductions of heart attacks (- 107/million), strokes (- 30/million), diabetes (- 134/million), ischemic heart disease deaths (- 56/million), and stroke deaths (- 8/million). FFSG is cost saving overall, with total savings in discounted healthcare costs from $4,611,026 (5 years) to $539,809,707 (lifetime) $U.S. This study demonstrates that FFSG improves health outcomes and is cost saving.

Keywords: Diet; Government; Health policy; Workplace.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest S. Abrahams-Gessel, S. Sy, P. Wilde, FF. Zhang, L. Lizewski, L. Liu, M. Ruan, Yujin Lee, and T. Gaziano report no conflict of interest. Dr. Micha reports research funding from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nestle and Danone, and personal fees from Bunge, and Development Initiatives for serving as the co-chair of the Global Nutrition Report—all outside the submitted work, and D. Mozaffarian from Boston Heart Diagnostics, Haas Avocado board, Astra Zeneca, GOED, DSM, Life Sciences Research Organization, and UpToDate, outside of the submitted work.

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