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Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England

BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity is high on the policy agenda of wealthier nations, and many interventions have been developed to address it. This work describes an overview of schemes for obese and overweight children and young people in England, and the 'mapping' approach we used. METHODS:...

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Autores principales: Aicken, Catherine, Roberts, Helen, Arai, Lisa
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20525344
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-310
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author Aicken, Catherine
Roberts, Helen
Arai, Lisa
author_facet Aicken, Catherine
Roberts, Helen
Arai, Lisa
author_sort Aicken, Catherine
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity is high on the policy agenda of wealthier nations, and many interventions have been developed to address it. This work describes an overview of schemes for obese and overweight children and young people in England, and the 'mapping' approach we used. METHODS: Our search strategy, inclusion criteria and coding frame had to be suitable for describing a potentially large number of schemes within a short timeframe. Data were collected from key informants, scheme publicity and reports, and via a web-survey. To be included, schemes had to be based in England, follow a structured programme lasting at least two weeks, promote healthy weight, and be delivered exclusively to overweight and/or obese children and young people (age range 4-18). Data were entered into a coding frame recording similar information for each scheme, including any underpinning research evidence, evaluation or monitoring reports. Priority questions were identified in consultation with colleagues from the Department of Health and the Cross Government Obesity Unit. RESULTS: Fifty-one schemes were identified. Some operated in multiple areas, and by using estimates of the number of schemes provided by multi-site scheme leads, we found that between 314 and 375 local programmes were running at any time. Uncertainty is largely due to the largest scheme provider undergoing rapid expansion at the time of the mapping exercise and therefore able to provide only an estimate of the number of programmes running. Many schemes were similar in their approach, had been recently established and were following NICE guidelines on interventions to promote healthy weight. Rigorous evaluation was rare. CONCLUSIONS: Our methods enabled us to produce a rapid overview of service activity across a wide geographic area and a range of organisations and sectors. In order to develop the evidence base for childhood obesity interventions, rigorous evaluation of these schemes is required. This overview can serve as a starting point for evaluations of interventions to address obesity. More generally, a rapid and systematic approach of this type is transferable to other types of service activity in health and social care, and may be a tool to inform public health planning.
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spelling pubmed-28906902010-06-24 Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England Aicken, Catherine Roberts, Helen Arai, Lisa BMC Public Health Research article BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity is high on the policy agenda of wealthier nations, and many interventions have been developed to address it. This work describes an overview of schemes for obese and overweight children and young people in England, and the 'mapping' approach we used. METHODS: Our search strategy, inclusion criteria and coding frame had to be suitable for describing a potentially large number of schemes within a short timeframe. Data were collected from key informants, scheme publicity and reports, and via a web-survey. To be included, schemes had to be based in England, follow a structured programme lasting at least two weeks, promote healthy weight, and be delivered exclusively to overweight and/or obese children and young people (age range 4-18). Data were entered into a coding frame recording similar information for each scheme, including any underpinning research evidence, evaluation or monitoring reports. Priority questions were identified in consultation with colleagues from the Department of Health and the Cross Government Obesity Unit. RESULTS: Fifty-one schemes were identified. Some operated in multiple areas, and by using estimates of the number of schemes provided by multi-site scheme leads, we found that between 314 and 375 local programmes were running at any time. Uncertainty is largely due to the largest scheme provider undergoing rapid expansion at the time of the mapping exercise and therefore able to provide only an estimate of the number of programmes running. Many schemes were similar in their approach, had been recently established and were following NICE guidelines on interventions to promote healthy weight. Rigorous evaluation was rare. CONCLUSIONS: Our methods enabled us to produce a rapid overview of service activity across a wide geographic area and a range of organisations and sectors. In order to develop the evidence base for childhood obesity interventions, rigorous evaluation of these schemes is required. This overview can serve as a starting point for evaluations of interventions to address obesity. More generally, a rapid and systematic approach of this type is transferable to other types of service activity in health and social care, and may be a tool to inform public health planning. BioMed Central 2010-06-04 /pmc/articles/PMC2890690/ /pubmed/20525344 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-310 Text en Copyright ©2010 Aicken et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research article
Aicken, Catherine
Roberts, Helen
Arai, Lisa
Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title_full Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title_fullStr Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title_full_unstemmed Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title_short Mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in England
title_sort mapping service activity: the example of childhood obesity schemes in england
topic Research article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20525344
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-310
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