A cost-effectiveness study of the community-based intervention '10 000 Steps Ghent'

To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the European community-based project '10 000 Steps Ghent', an intervention that resulted in a significant decrease in sedentary time and a significant increase in step counts (896 steps/d) and self-reported walking (66 min/week).

An age- and gender-dependent Markov model, with a time horizon of 20 years and a cycle length of 1 year, estimating the development of diabetes, cardiovascular events and colorectal cancer.

All individuals started in a health state free of events. The effect of the intervention was based on published risk reductions related to increased walking time. Costs and utility decrements related to events were obtained from published literature. The impact of the uncertainty of the parameters on incremental costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALY) were assessed with one-way sensitivity analyses and a Monte Carlo analysis.

Cohort representing the population reached by the intervention (266 adults aged 25-75 years with a mean age of 48·2 (sd 13·1) years, 45·6 % men, 64·6 % highly educated, 70·0 % employed).

Implementing the community-based programme increased average QALY by 0·16 and 0·11 for men and women, respectively. The total costs decreased by approximately 576€ and 427€, respectively. Hence, for both genders the intervention programme was dominant. The sensitivity analyses did not change the conclusion of dominance.

The community-based '10 000 Steps Ghent' campaign is a dominant intervention. Sensitivity analyses have proved the robustness of the results; hence implementing this intervention on a population-based level could lead to improved health outcomes and reduced costs.