People living in rural areas are more likely to have obesity than those living in cities, and they are also less likely to have access to weight loss programs. This PCORI-funded study compared three ways to treat obesity in rural populations: regular in-person clinic sessions, in-person group sessions, and phone-based group sessions. In a paper published January 2021 in JAMA, the study reported that people in the in-person group sessions averaged greater weight loss after 24 months than the other two groups.

This PCORI-funded study compared three types of weight loss management programs for people with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes who also had overweight or obesity. The study compared outcomes of patients in three groups: an online weight management program with meal plans, menus, and a weight tracker; that same program plus support from a health manager; and usual care. As reported in JAMA, the group that used the online weight management program and had access to a health manager, on average, experienced a statistically significant greater weight loss after 12 months compared to the other two groups.

Reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine, the PROPEL Study found that an intensive healthy lifestyle intervention—which included health coaches embedded in primary care practices working with patients to develop healthy habits—resulted in patients losing significantly more weight than those who received usual care from their primary care clinics, and they kept more weight off at two years later. The results show that successful weight loss can be achieved in primary care settings in a highly underserved population who have significant barriers to obtaining health care services.

The PCORnet^® Bariatric Study—which is using data from PCORnet, The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network—to study outcomes among patients who undergo common weight-loss surgeries has published several papers in prominent medical journals. The most recent clinical findings, published in JAMA Surgery, are on diabetes remission outcomes among patients who underwent gastric bypass and gastric sleeve surgeries. Another article, also published in JAMA Surgery, details the five-year outcomes of patients who underwent either gastric bypass or adjustable banding, finding that gastric bypass patients were significantly more likely than gastric sleeve patients to end up back in the hospital in the years following surgery.