ACP increases efforts to advance equitable obesity care

Key takeaways:

• ACP has curated a collection of content on obesity care and developed an education hub to support clinicians.
• The organization will also convene a summit later this year on obesity and health equity.

SAN DIEGO — ACP has launched a new initiative to improve equitable access to obesity care through physician education, advocacy and partnerships.

During a press briefing at the ACP Internal Medicine Meeting, outgoing ACP President Ryan D. Mire, MD, MACP, a practicing internal medicine physician in Nashville, cited CDC data that showed the prevalence of obesity in the United States was about 42% in 2017 to 2020, “with a higher prevalence among some racial and ethnic groups and those who are socially and economically disadvantaged.”

“We recognize that obesity and health equity are not simple issues with easy, clear solutions. These are complex issues complicated by multiple factors,” he said. “Who better to address these complexities than internal medicine physicians, who are the experts of complexity? This is the moment for ACP to step in and step up.”

The organization’s new initiative will include the development of clinical guidelines and resources to advance care and help physicians combat misinformation, stigma and bias surrounding obesity. This includes a collection of content in Annals of Internal Medicine related to obesity and overweight, which will be continually updated to “make it easier for our clinicians to keep up with the science and changing clinical management landscape,” Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, ACP vice president and senior deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, said.

“We as clinicians know that the health consequences of obesity are cross-cutting across multiple specialties, so we firmly believe that obesity management is in all our lanes, regardless of our specialty,” Wee said during the briefing. “Historically, unfortunately, clinicians are not adequately trained on the topic of obesity and its treatment.”

Davoren A. Chick, MD, FACP, chief learning officer and senior vice president of medical education at ACP, said that most medical schools have “a fairly limited amount of time to devote to education around nutrition and diet.”

Therefore, ACP has also created an Obesity Management Learning Hub, which contains materials that will increase clinicians’ confidence in starting patient conversations and prescribing behavioral modifications and anti-obesity medications.

Wee said that patients are increasingly asking about newer pharmacotherapies, so “there is an urgency” among internal medicine physicians to learn more about them.

“There is an enormous amount of responsibility in the internal medicine physician community as prescribers of these medications,” Chick said. “There is a lot to learn, and so that will be a focus, but so is making sure that we are appropriately identifying patients who are candidates for bariatric surgery.”

Chick added that the new educational materials will help “physicians feel empowered to care for their patients.”

“We’re blessed with a physician population in this country that is motivated and intrinsically desires to care for their patients,” she said. “All they want is a little help. And so, all we need to do is to provide them with that support, the resources and the knowledge.”

In addition to these materials, Mire said that ACP will partner with the Council of Subspeciality Societies to convene a summit this fall on obesity and health equity.

“We will continue to advocate for addressing disparities in health and health care and social determinants of health to improve patient care and to push for health equity,” he said.

References:

• Adult obesity facts. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html. Accessed April 28, 2023.
• American College of Physicians announces initiative to advance equitable access to obesity care. https://www.acponline.org/acp-newsroom/american-college-of-physicians-announces-initiative-to-advance-equitable-access-to-obesity-care. Published April 28, 2023. Accessed April 28, 2023.