Healthy Weight for Life programme: Evaluating the practice and effectiveness of a weight loss maintenance programme in the private health insurance setting

Abstract

Background: Australian private health insurers are increasingly involved in the delivery of chronic disease management programmes to their members, recognising the importance of decreasing and managing lifestyle risk factors and the impact such factors have on health service utilisation. One such secondary prevention programme is the Healthy Weight for Life programme, an intensive weight loss and lifestyle modification programme that has been designed for overweight and obese private health insurance members in Australia. Together with the insurer, the Healthy Weight for Life service provider developed and implemented a long-term maintenance programme that supports participants who complete the Healthy Weight for Life programme to maintain the weight loss they achieved during the programme. Various studies have shown that evidence-based weight management programmes can be effective; however, the results may vary in different contexts. Objective: This article presents the evaluation rationale and framework designed to assess the process and impact of the long-term maintenance programme on weight loss maintenance, other health-related benefits and participants’ experience with the programme. Methods: The evaluation will comprise a number of inter-related sub-studies balancing evaluation of programme effectiveness and implementation. The maintenance programme presented a unique opportunity for researchers to partner with private health insurance and a service provider to assess a real-world programme in the under-researched area of weight loss maintenance in this setting and emphasises the importance of evaluating such programmes given the potential the private health insurance context has in the future delivery of health care.

“I’m Still on Track”: A Qualitative Exploration of Participant Experiences of a Weight Loss Maintenance Program

“…Recruitment for this study was from participants of the HWFL program who were part of a larger study evaluating the impact of the LTMP involving surveys at the LTMP baseline, at 6 months and at 12 months [11]. Those who completed six months of the LTMP from August to November 2018 were eligible for the current study (n = 32).…”

“…One such program is the Long-Term Maintenance Program (LTMP), a low-intensity individualised behavioural support and relapse management program available to individuals who have completed the Healthy Weight for Life (HWFL) program. The HWFL program and the LTMP have been described previously [11,12]. Briefly, the HWFL program is an intensive 18 week weight loss and lifestyle modification program offered to Australian private health insurance members with overweight or obesity and who have osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease (www.healthyweightforlife.com.au).…”

“…The program is delivered remotely by a support team of health professionals and focuses on portion-controlled healthy eating (including KicStart TM meal replacements) and recommendations for physical activity. The LTMP extends the contact of the HWFL program to support participants to maintain the weight loss and health benefits attained during the HWFL program with a focus on behavioural support, relapse management and support for weight-related self-monitoring, as well provision of behaviour change resources such as educational materials, recipes and meal replacement products, described in more detail elsewhere [11].…”

Beyond weight loss: Impact of a weight management programme for mid‐older Australians in private health insurance

“…Following formative research and consistent with accepted best practice, the HWFL programme was extended with the addition of the long‐term maintenance program (LTMP). The LTMP, also delivered remotely, offers individually tailored behavioural support and relapse management for maintaining healthy weight‐related behaviours, providing participants unlimited contact (through phone calls, an online portal, emails or SMS) with the HWFL support team, as well as regular case review for up to 24 months as described elsewhere . As part of the private health insurance funding for the LTMP, participants are required to self‐report their weight and waist circumference monthly, and where these measures are not provided for three consecutive months, funding is ceased (ie, “system‐based discontinued”).…”

“…The design rationale, methodology and measures used to evaluate the impact of the LTMP have been described previously . Briefly, this study used pre‐post data from two related cohorts.…”