Morbidity associated with overweight and obesity in health personnel: a 10-year retrospective of hospital-based cohort study in Taiwan

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate morbidity associated with overweight and obesity in health personnel and compare the differences among work roles.

Materials and methods

This retrospective cohort study examined measurements obtained during employee medical checkups between 2007 and 2016 in a Taiwan medical center. BMI was used to define overweight (≥24 and <27 kg/m²) and obesity (≥27 kg/m²). Morbidity refers to prevalence, period incidence proportion, and incidence rate. Multivariable Cox model was used to estimate the HRs and 95% CI of the incidence proportion across work roles.

Results

Ten thousand six hundred fifty-one health personnel with 24,295 BMI measurements were recruited. Mean age was 33.4±10.7 years and 72.4% was female. In total, 1,992 (8.2%) health personnel were underweight, 13,568 (55.8%) had a normal BMI, 5,097 (21%) were overweight, and 3,638 (15%) were obese. Five thousand nine hundred one health personnel with 31,172 different interval-year arrangement combinations were obtained. The incidence proportion of overweight and obesity was 1,947 (6.2%) and 1,494 (4.8%), respectively. The incidence rate was 37/1,000 and 15/1,000 person-years, respectively. Compared with that in supporting staff, the HR of overweight in doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals was 0.93 (95% CI =0.73–1.18, P=0.553), 0.92 (95% CI =0.73–1.16, P=0.491), and 0.85 (95% CI =0.67–1.09, P=0.202), respectively. Similarly, the HR of obesity was 0.86 (95% CI =0.66–1.14, P=0.301), 0.89 (95% CI =0.67–1.18, P=0.430), and 0.84 (95% CI =0.63–1.13, P=0.248), respectively.

Conclusion

In health personnel, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 21% and 15%, respectively. The incidence proportion was 6.2% and 4.8%, respectively. Morbidity across the four health work roles examined was not significantly different.

Keywords:

• prevalence
• incidence
• obesity
• overweight
• health personnel
• body mass index

Acknowledgments

We thank the MacKay Memorial Hospital librarian, Peijin Li, for examining the references. We thank Chun-Yang Huang, cardiovascular surgeon in the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, for facilitating our access to resources. We would like to thank Uni-edit (www.uni-edit.net) for editing and proofreading this manuscript.

Disclosure

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. All authors had full access to the data of the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and accuracy of the data analysis. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

Author contributions

All authors made substantial contributions as follows: 1) SLW, LCH, and TLY conceived and designed the study; 2) SLW, HHChiu, and TLY acquired, analyzed, and interpreted the data; 3) TLY drafted the article; and 4) HHChen critically revised the article to add important intellectual content. All authors contributed to data analysis, drafting and revising the article, gave final approval of the version to be published, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.