Abstract
SummaryBackgroundFew studies have examined health service utilization of children with overweight or obesity by using linked electronic health records (EHRs).Objective/MethodsWe analysed EHRs from 3269 children (1678 boys; 51.3% [weighted]) participating in the Millennium Cohort Study, living in Wales or Scotland at age seven whose parents consented to record linkage. We used height and weight measurements at age five to categorize children as obese (>98th centile) or overweight (>91st centile) (UK1990 clinical reference standards) and linked to hospital admissions, up to age 14 years, in the Patient Episode Database for Wales and Scottish Morbidity Records. Negative binomial regression models compared rates of inpatient admissions by weight status at age five.ResultsAt age five, 11.5% and 6.7% of children were overweight or obese, respectively; 1221 (38%) children were subsequently admitted to hospital at least once. Admissions were not increased among children with overweight or obesity (adjusted rate ratio [RR], 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.87, 0.68‐1.10 and 1.16, 0.87‐1.54, respectively).ConclusionsIn this nationally representative cohort of children in Wales and Scotland, those with overweight or obesity at entry to primary school did not have increased rates of hospital admissions in later childhood and early adolescence.
Highlights
Obesity in children and young people (CYP) continues to pose a significant public health challenge
As 62% of children had no admissions, and some children had a relatively large number of admissions, zero‐inflated negative binomial (ZINB) models were initially considered to model the latent processes generating the observed number of admissions
Using UK1990 clinical cut‐ offs, 11.2% of children were overweight, and 6.4% were obese at age five with 82.5% of the children defined as being of healthy weight
Summary
Obesity in children and young people (CYP) continues to pose a significant public health challenge. One in five children is overweight or obese during their first year of primary school in England, Scotland, and Wales.[2] Data from the 2016/17 National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) in Pediatric Obesity. There are well‐established implications of paediatric obesity in the short term for CYP's physical health, development, and well‐being[4] and, in the longer term, for health in adult life. These “potentially devastating” consequences,[5] coupled with the high prevalence of this condition, pose a potentially significant burden on community, primary, and secondary health services
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