Oral

The theme of the 2012 APHA conference is Prevention and Wellness Across the Lifespan. Across many diseases, prevention efforts can be largely influenced by social and environmental factors such as family, peer group, school, and community influences, as these factors contribute to health promotion and disease prevention challenges across the lifespan. The proposed session focuses on how statistical methods can help to better understand the contributions from environmental factors on health outcomes using childhood obesity as an example. The methods to be presented are: spatial analyses; population-level trend analyses; change on change analyses; and novel methods to compare relative effects of multiple environmental factors on childhood obesity. Obesity during childhood, a critical developmental period of the lifespan, has tremendous consequences on future health, disease risk and morbidity throughout the life of individuals as well as on overall population health. Statistical methods can advance the fields of statistics, public health and prevention policies by improving our ability to better understand environmental contributions to obesity, informing the design of effective interventions to prevent disease and helping to enhance the wellness of populations across the lifespan.

Session Objectives: Identify statistical methods in contributing strategies for obesity prevention and wellness

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)