207709 It's more than the sum of the parts: Taking a holistic approach to chronic disease prevention—Examples from tobacco use and obesity prevention/reduction efforts

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 11:40 AM

Jamie F. Chriqui, PhD, MHS , Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Frank J. Chaloupka, PhD , Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
  
Background: Policy/environmental strategies have been successful in efforts to prevent/reduce tobacco use and are being widely adopted in obesity reduction efforts.

Methods: This presentation will review three tobacco use reduction strategies—smokefree air laws, advertising/marketing restrictions, and smoking cessation programs—that provide useful evidence for how such strategies can be critical in efforts to reduce chronic disease risk factors. This will be followed by a review of the types of strategies that states, localities, and school districts are taking to address the obesity epidemic and why obesity presents additional challenges not seen in the tobacco field.

Findings: A large body of evidence has shown that smokefree air laws, advertising/marketing restrictions, and smoking cessation programs (in addition to price effects discussed in a separate presentation) have individually and collectively been successful in helping to reduce tobacco use. However, while tobacco use reduction focuses on one risk factor, smoking, obesity reduction efforts need to address the problem from two perspectives—energy in (food) and energy out (physical activity). Strategies being employed to address the obesity epidemic range from restrictions on food access (e.g., vending machine restrictions in schools) and content (e.g., trans fat bans, menu labeling requirements) to restrictions on unhealthy product marketing in schools to regulations in the built environment (e.g., bike lane requirements, connecting subdivisions with parks, allowing the community to use schools for physical activity purposes).

Conclusions: A range of approaches are needed to prevent the onset and to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases and related risk factors.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe three tobacco use reduction policy/environmental strategies—smokefree air laws, advertising/marketing restrictions, and smoking cessation programs—that provide useful evidence for how such strategies can be critical in efforts to reduce chronic disease risk factors 2. Discuss the types of strategies that states, localities, and school districts are taking to address the obesity epidemic and why obesity presents additional challenges not seen in the tobacco field

Keywords: Tobacco Control, Obesity

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Jamie F. Chriqui, Ph.D., M.H.S. is a Senior Research Scientist in the Health Policy Center within the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has over 17 years’ experience conducting public health policy research, evaluation, and analysis, with an emphasis on substance abuse, tobacco control and, most recently, obesity policy-related issues. Dr. Chriqui has led a number of efforts to develop quantitative measures of the extensiveness of state and local level public health policies, including spearheading efforts to evaluate the extensiveness of state tobacco control policies for the National Cancer Institute, the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and the RWJF-supported ImpacTeen project. In recent years, she has increasingly focused on evaluating state and local laws and policies related to school-based obesity prevention issues including laws and policies related to school-based nutrition, physical education, and wellness policy requirements. She is routinely called upon to deliver training sessions and presentations on methods for researching and evaluating public health policies. For the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-supported ImpacTeen project, she currently leads the state obesity and tobacco control policy components and she has led the state illicit drug law and substance abuse treatment policy research efforts. Dr. Chriqui also is co-director of the RWJF-funded Food and Fitness project, which examines obesity-related policies and practices in a nationwide sample of elementary schools and school districts. Dr. Chriqui is leading the wellness policy component of the Food & Fitness study to systematically collect and analyze wellness policies from a nationally representative sample of 681 school districts throughout the U.S. Prior to joining UIC, Dr. Chriqui served as Technical Vice-President of the Center for Health Policy and Legislative Analysis at The MayaTech Corporation where she led a series of studies funded by the National Cancer Institute to develop quantitative systems for classifying the nature and extent of state school-based nutrition and physical education policies. She holds a Ph.D. in Policy Sciences (Health Policy Concentration) from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, an M.H.S. in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, and a B.A. in Political Science from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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