Journal article
Impact of Policy and Built Environment Changes on Obesity-related Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Naturally-Occurring Experiments
Obesity reviews, v 16(5), pp 362-375
May 2015
PMID: 25753170
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Policies and changes to the built environment are promising targets for obesity prevention efforts and can be evaluated as “natural”- or “quasi”-experiments. This systematic review examined the use of natural- or quasi-experiments to evaluate the efficacy of policy and built environment changes on obesity-related outcomes (body mass index, diet, or physical activity). PubMed (Medline) was searched for studies published 2005–2013; 1,175 abstracts and 115 articles were reviewed. Of the 37 studies included, 18 studies evaluated impacts on nutrition/diet, 17 on physical activity, and 3 on body mass index. Nutrition-related studies found greater effects due to bans/restrictions on unhealthy foods, mandates offering healthier foods, and altering purchase/payment rules on foods purchased using low-income food vouchers compared to other interventions (menu labeling, new supermarkets). Physical activity-related studies generally found stronger impacts when the intervention involved improvements to active transportation infrastructure, longer follow-up time, or measured process outcomes (e.g., cycling rather than total physical activity) compared to other studies. Only three studies directly assessed body mass index or weight, and only one (installing light-rail system) observed a significant effect. Studies varied widely in the strength of their design and studies with weaker designs were more likely to report associations in the positive direction.
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Details
- Title
- Impact of Policy and Built Environment Changes on Obesity-related Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Naturally-Occurring Experiments
- Creators
- Stephanie L Mayne - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Drexel UniversityAmy H Auchincloss - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Drexel UniversityYvonne L Michael - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Obesity reviews, v 16(5), pp 362-375
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Epidemiology and Biostatistics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000353892200002
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84927970190
- Other Identifier
- 991014877711304721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Endocrinology & Metabolism