Obesity

“We’re looking for innovative ways to both treat and prevent obesity — including creating healthier environments and designing programs for whole families.”

David Arterburn, MD, MPH
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Senior Investigator
Washington Permanente Medical Group, Internal Medicine

Research overview

“Obesity is the number-one health problem in the United States because it negatively affects our population’s health more than any other condition,” said Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Senior Investigator David Arterburn, MD, MPH. Kaiser Permanente Washington researchers are doing practical research to learn how doctors, patients, families, employers, and policymakers can best work together to prevent and treat obesity.

“We’re focusing on three ways to halt the obesity epidemic,” said Senior Investigator Dori Rosenberg, PhD, MPH. “We’re helping to change obesity-promoting environments, bringing evidence-based prevention and treatment programs into health care systems, and helping people develop lifelong healthy diet and activity habits.”

Kaiser Permanente Washington obesity research areas include:

reducing sedentary behavior and promoting physical activity and healthy diet in various age groups, populations with chronic conditions, and families;
shared decision making to help patients find the best way to a healthy weight;
implementing health coaches in primary care to support behavior changes;
social networks that support lifestyle change programs;
relationships between medications and genetic factors in developing obesity;
health system, community, and national policies that address obesity;
relationships between obesity and depression, diabetes, and other conditions; and
long-term benefits and risks of bariatric (weight loss) surgery.

“Obesity is caused by many factors, so at Kaiser Permanente Washington, we’re working on many levels,” said Paula Lozano, MD, MPH, a senior investigator and Kaiser Permanente Washington’s assistant medical director for preventive care. “We’re improving health care to help people who are obese now. But since obesity is a societal problem, we’re also studying how to change our homes and workplaces and neighborhoods to create more healthy environments.”

Recent publications on Obesity

Smith VA, Arterburn DE, Berkowitz TSZ, Olsen MK, Livingston EH, Yancy WS Jr, Weidenbacher HJ, Maciejewski ML. Association between bariatric surgery and long-term health care expenditures among veterans with severe obesity. JAMA Surg. 2019 Dec 1;154(12):e193732. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2019.3732. Epub 2019 Dec 18. PubMed

Lewis KH, Arterburn DE, Callaway K, Zhang F, Argetsinger S, Wallace J, Fernandez A, Ross-Degnan D, Wharam JF. Risk of operative and nonoperative interventions up to 4 years after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass vs vertical sleeve gastrectomy in a nationwide US commercial insurance claims database. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Dec 2;2(12):e1917603. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.17603. PubMed

Robinson JR, Carroll RJ, Bastarache L, Chen Q, Mou Z, Wei WQ, Connolly JJ, Mentch F, Sleiman P, Crane PK, Hebbring SJ, Stanaway IB, Crosslin DR, Gordon AS, Rosenthal EA, Carrell D, Hayes MG, Wei W, Petukhova L, Namjou B, Zhang G, Safarova MS, Walton NA, Still C, Bottinger EP, Loos RJF, Murphy SN, Jackson GP, Kullo IJ, Hakonarson H, Jarvik GP, Larson EB, Weng C, Roden DM, Denny JC. Association of genetic risk of obesity with postoperative complications using Mendelian randomization. World J Surg. 2020 Jan;44(1):84-94. doi: 10.1007/s00268-019-05202-9. PubMed

Saxon DR, Iwamoto SJ, Mettenbrink CJ, McCormick E, Arterburn D, Daley MF, Oshiro CE, Koebnick C, Horberg M, Young DR, Bessesen DH. Antiobesity medication use in 2.2 million adults across eight large health care organizations: 2009-2015. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 Oct 11. doi: 10.1002/oby.22581. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Zhu Y, Sidell MA, Arterburn D, Daley MF, Desai J, Fitzpatrick SL, Horberg MA, Koebnick C, McCormick E, Oshiro C, Young DR, Ferrara A. Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Prevalence of Diabetes and Prediabetes by BMI: Patient Outcomes Research To Advance Learning (PORTAL) Multisite Cohort of Adults in the U.S. LID - dc190532 [pii] LID - 10.2337/dc19-0532 [doi] Diabetes Care. 2019 Dec;42(12):2211-2219. doi: 10.2337/dc19-0532. Epub 2019 Sep 19. PubMed