103 / 2019-10-29 22:58:48

Girls from moderate wealth & self-employed families：a subgroup sensitive to the built environment in China

childhood obesity, social economic status, neighborhood environment, girls, China

B. 公共卫生相关主题 > Track - B 默认专题

The present study aims to explore the joint inequality of household wealth, parental education, parental occupation, and built environment on childhood obesity. Objective anthropometric measurement and questionnaire surveys were carried out on 3670 children (aged 9-12 years) and their parents. Objective measures of children’s school-neighborhood environments were obtained using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Mixed effect models tested interaction effects of neighborhood environment and socioeconomic status (SES) intersectionality group on body mass index (BMI z-score) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR z-score). Separate analyses for boys and for girls were conducted to take into consideration gender susceptibility for SES and built environment. According to the results, six composite SES groups were identified by clustering analysis using household wealth index, parental education and parental occupation. Girls from families characterized by moderate wealth & self-employed parents (M&S) had the highest adjusted z-BMI and z-WHR. For girls from M&S families, each increase in number of school neighborhood supermarkets and residential sites were respectively related to 0.45 SD (95%CI: -0.76, -0.15) and 0.01 SD (95%CI: -0.03, 0.00) decrease in WHR, while each increase in number of school neighborhood convenience stores and public transport stops were respectively related to 0.02 SD (95%CI: 0.00, 0.03) and 0.23 SD (95%CI: 0.15, 0.31) increase in WHR. The results suggested that girls from M&S families may have the highest obesity risk in China. Local policies targeted at improving the school neighborhood environment may be one avenue for reducing socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity.