Abstract
ObjectivesThe Healthy Kids Community Challenge is a large-scale, centrally-coordinated, community-based intervention in Ontario, Canada that promotes healthy behaviours towards improving healthy weights among children. With the goal of exploring tools available to evaluators, we leveraged electronic medical records from primary care physicians to assess child weights prior to launch of the Healthy Kids Community Challenge. This study compares the baseline (i.e. pre-intervention) prevalence of overweight and obesity in children 1–12 years of age living within and outside Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities.DesignCross-sectional analysis of a primary care patient cohort.SettingElectronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD) in Ontario, Canada.ParticipantsA cohort of 19 920 Ontario children who are rostered to an EMRALD physician. Children were 1–12 years of age at a primary care visit with recorded measured height and weight, between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2015.Outcome measureOverweight and obesity as determined by age- and sex-standardized body mass index using World Health Organization’s Growth Standards.ResultsIn Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities, 25.6% (95% CI 24.6–26.6%) of children had zBMI above normal (i.e. >1) compared to 26.7% (95% CI 25.9–27.5%) for children living outside of Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities.ConclusionsDespite some differences in sociodemographic characteristics, zBMI of children aged 1–12 years were similar inside and outside of Healthy Kids Community Challenge community boundaries prior to program launch.
Highlights
Public health policy-makers and practitioners are increasingly expected to demonstrate the impacts of their programs on population health outcomes.[1]
Despite the higher proportion of well-baby/child zBMI measurements for children in Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) communities, the current results show that the proportion of children in each zBMI cut-off category was similar between HKCC and non-HKCC communities
Our study shows that baseline body mass index (BMI) z-scores were similar between children living within and outside of HKCC intervention communities, despite some differences in sociodemographic characteristics
Summary
Public health policy-makers and practitioners are increasingly expected to demonstrate the impacts of their programs on population health outcomes.[1] assessing the impacts of large-scale programs intended to improve the health of the population can be challenging. The HKCC is a large-scale, centrally-coordinated, community-based intervention in Ontario, Canada that promotes healthy behaviours towards improving healthy weights among children.[4] Designed by Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) based on the Ensemble Prevenons l’Obesitedes Enfants’ (EPODE) model, the HKCC was launched in September 2015 in 45 selected communities. MOHLTC provided the communities with coordination, funding, training, and other resources (e.g., social marketing messages and tools) to implement community programs and activities that address locally-identified needs. The impacts of the HKCC in Aboriginal Stream communities are being evaluated under a different component of Public Health Ontario’s evaluation of the HKCC. [5]
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