Public health interventions that tackle dementia risk factors could yield as much as £4bn in savings in England by reducing dementia rates and helping people to live longer and healthier, according to a new study from UCL which is supported by the BRC.
The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, shows that interventions – such as reformulating food products to reduce sugar and salt intake, introducing low emission zones to improve air quality in cities, and minimum alcohol unit pricing to reduce drinking – could have extensive benefits beyond just the health outcomes they are directly targeting.
Lead author Dr Naaheed Mukadam (UCL Psychiatry) said: “There is a growing body of research demonstrating that dementia rates could be reduced by targeting risk factors throughout the lifespan. Smoking, drinking, and high blood pressure are among numerous risk factors that increase the likelihood of a person developing dementia later in life, which could be targeted by public health interventions.
“While most of the initiatives we studied are not designed with dementia reduction as an aim, in many cases their impact on dementia risk is so great that they pay for themselves by impact on dementia costs alone, which should be routinely considered as part of cost-benefit evaluations.”
The economic modelling study estimated the impact of population-level interventions on subsequent dementia rates and related costs, including the expected gains to Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY; equivalent to an additional year of life in perfect health, expressed as a total across the population). The interventions studied, targeting six risk factors (smoking, alcohol use, obesity, hypertension, head injuries, and air pollution) could yield over 70,000 QALY gains in total.
The latest study is being published in conjunction with the third Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, led by Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry), which reports that nearly half of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 14 risk factors throughout the lifespan.
Professor Livingston, also the senior author on The Lancet Healthy Longevity economic modelling paper, said: “Finding effective treatments for dementia is now a massive challenge for scientists, clinicians and governments, and there are signs of hope, but we also know that we could save many people from ever developing dementia in the first place by targeting risk factors. As our population ages and the societal costs of dementia rise, there is a growing need for public health measures to prevent dementia.”
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