Association of body mass index with health care expenditures in the United States by age and sex.
Ward ZJ, Bleich SN, Long MW, Gortmaker SL.
PLoS One. 2021. 16(3):e0247307. PMID: 33760880
Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Steven Gortmaker is Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology where he directs the Harvard Chan School of Public Health Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity (HPRC). The mission of the HPRC is to work with communities, state and local government, and other partners to develop, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of strategies to improve nutrition and physical activity, reduce obesity and chronic disease risk among children, youth, and their families, and to reduce and eliminate disparities in these outcomes. We work with a wide range of partners to translate and disseminate this work at community, state and national levels.
I currently direct the Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study (CHOICES). Over the past three decades, more and more people living in the United States have developed obesity, which puts them at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. If current trends continue, the majority of today's children-59 percent-will grow up to have obesity when they are age 35. This is why CHOICES is working to identify effective prevention policies and programs that will help more children achieve and maintain a healthy weight and deliver the best results for the dollars invested. We use cost-effectiveness analysis to compare the costs and outcomes of different policies and programs, and microsimulation models to create virtual populations of people based on "big data" (e.g. US Census, National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System). Starting in 2015, the CHOICES team began partnerships to translate results into action. Together with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), we have created Learning Collaborative Partnerships with state and city health agencies and both statewide and local partners. We have worked with 15 states and cities: Alaska, Washington State, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Denver, San Antonio, Mississippi, Minnesota, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Philadelphia, Allegheny Country (including Pittsburgh), Detroit, Houston and Salt Lake County. The CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership provides training, technical assistance, resources and tools on cost-effectiveness analysis for use in local decision-making related to obesity prevention strategies and opportunities for peer-to-peer learning.
Dr. Gortmaker's research with colleagues has documented the "energy gap" responsible for recent increases in obesity among children and youth in the United States, and the important role played by excess intake of sugar sweetened beverages. He has been an author or coauthor of more than 240 published research articles, including the first report in the United States concerning the obesity epidemic among children and youth. These papers have helped to focus subsequent epidemiologic and intervention work in this field. In addition, Dr. Gortmaker and his colleagues have designed interventions that are low cost, easily disseminated, and sustainable. Such interventions include the school curriculums Planet Health and Eat Well and Keep Moving, the afterschool curriculum Food and Fun (jointly developed with YMCA of the USA), and the Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity initiative (OSNAP). These interventions were evaluated with randomized trials and quasi-experimental designs. Recent studies include a four-paper obesity modeling series in the Lancet, and CHOICES papers in Health Affairs, Preventive Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Gortmaker earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Ward ZJ, Bleich SN, Long MW, Gortmaker SL.
PLoS One. 2021. 16(3):e0247307. PMID: 33760880
Kenney EL, Bleich S, Gortmaker S.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 10. 39(10):1839. PMID: 33017242
Ward ZJ, Gortmaker SL.
JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2020 Dec. 4(6):pkaa075. PMID: 33409453
Kenney EL, Barrett JL, Bleich SN, Ward ZJ, Cradock AL, Gortmaker SL.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 07. 39(7):1122-1129. PMID: 32634356
Kenney EL, Daly JG, Lee RM, Mozaffarian RS, Walsh K, Carter J, Gortmaker SL.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 12 20. 17(1). PMID: 31861778
Ward ZJ, Bleich SN, Cradock AL, Barrett JL, Giles CM, Flax C, Long MW, Gortmaker SL.
N Engl J Med. 2019 12 19. 381(25):2440-2450. PMID: 31851800
Kenney EL, Cradock AL, Long MW, Barrett JL, Giles CM, Ward ZJ, Gortmaker SL.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 12. 27(12):2037-2045. PMID: 31746555
Lee RM, Barrett JL, Daly JG, Mozaffarian RS, Giles CM, Cradock AL, Gortmaker SL.
BMC Public Health. 2019 Nov 28. 19(1):1587. PMID: 31779603
Basto-Abreu A, Barrientos-Gutiérrez T, Vidaña-Pérez D, Colchero MA, Hernández-F M, Hernández-Ávila M, Ward ZJ, Long MW, Gortmaker SL.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2019 11. 38(11):1824-1831. PMID: 31682510
Petimar J, Zhang F, Cleveland LP, Simon D, Gortmaker SL, Polacsek M, Bleich SN, Rimm EB, Roberto CA, Block JP.
BMJ. 2019 10 30. 367:l5837. PMID: 31666218
People with obesity who catch COVID-19 are more likely to be admitted to the hospital and to die from the disease than those at lower weights, evidence suggests.
For immediate release: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 Boston, MA – About half of the adult U.S. population will have obesity and about a quarter will have severe obesity by 2030, according to a new study led by Harvard…
For immediate release: November 29, 2017 Boston, MA – If current trends in child obesity continue, more than 57% of today’s children in the U.S. will have obesity at age 35, according to a new study from Harvard…
July 25, 2017 – Nearly a third of U.S. adults are not hydrated enough, and poorer adults as well as Black and Hispanic adults are at higher risk for poor hydration than wealthier and white adults, according to…
For immediate release: June 27, 2017 Key Takeaways: After a two-year comprehensive effort to reduce childhood obesity in two low-income communities in Massachusetts, the prevalence of obesity decreased among some schoolchildren; some students drank less sugar-sweetened beverages and…