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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Mary Rowan, RN, MS¹, Maureen Starck, RN, MEd¹, Juhee Kim, ScD², Nancy Sullivan, RN, MS, FNP-C¹, Linda Grant, MD, MPH¹, Jennifer Burden, ScD, CHES³, Elizabeth Walker, MS⁴, and Karen E. Peterson, RD, DSc⁵. (1) Boston School Health Services, 443 Warren Street, Dorchester, MA 02121, (617) 635-6788, mrowan@boston.k12.ma.us, (2) Public Health Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, (3) One River Grants, 8 Winter Street, 1st Floor, Troy, NY 12180, (4) Nemours Health and Prevention Services, 252 Chapman Rd., Chrisitiana Bldg., Suite 200, Newark, DE 19702, (5) Nutrition and Society Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

Academic-community partnerships can provide an inter-organizational infrastructure for generating ‘data to action' to support local overweight initiatives. School health screening often includes heights and weights, but precision of estimates of overweight prevalence based on these measures may be limited by lack of appropriate equipment and training in standardized measuring techniques and skills in data entry, management and analysis. In this case study, CDC Guidelines for Evaluating Surveillance serve as a roadmap to describe collaborative processes for building height and weight monitoring in Boston schools. A team of graduate student volunteers supervised by school nurses conducted a census of 372 seventh graders students in two schools. Portable, research quality stadiometers were loaned by the university partner. Information on individual students was retained by nurses in students' medical records. Age, sex, height and weight were provided anonymously to a university analyst. We excluded 30 records with measurement concerns recorded on the data form. Web-based reference growth curves and software were used to assess data quality and estimate overweight prevalence. Data quality was in acceptable range for mean Z score for height (SD 1.089); reliability of duplicate measures on 197 students was high (0.997). The proportion of 342 students in this urban public school setting who were categorized as at risk of overweight (23..7 4%) and as overweight (27.8%) exceeded national prevalence rates. Findings provide evidence of an alternative model for screening and monitoring overweight in schools that may be implemented with minimal resources within the context of a durable university-community partnership.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply CDC Guidelines for Evaluating Surveillance to school-based height and weight monitoring.
• Describe strategies for school nurses to work with university collaborators to obtain and analyze student height and weight data for dual purposes of overweight screening and surveillance.

Keywords: Child Health, Data/Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No