A Monte Carlo Simulation Model for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Interventions along the ‘Diabesity' Pathway

The prevalence of obesity has increased worldwide in the past 50 years, reaching pandemic levels (Blüher, 2019). In this paper, we report on the development of an intervention evaluation model and risk assessment tool that has been developed for an Adult Weight Management Service (AWMS) within the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS). The tool uses Monte Carlo simulation to predict the progress of morbidity and mortality in individual AWMS patients for up to 25 years, with and without intervention. Running the tool on a sample of AWMS patients with known weight loss outcomes indicates that interventions can be evaluated in terms of risk assessment of developing obesity-related health conditions such as diabetes.