Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2016
The role of neighborhood characteristics and the built environment in understanding racial/ethnic disparities in childhood obesity.
Childhood obesity prevalence remains high and racial/ethnic disparities may be widening. Studies have examined the role of health behavioral differences. Less is known regarding neighborhood and built environment mediators of disparities. The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which racial/ethnic disparities in elevated child body mass index (BMI) are explained by neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and built environment. ⋯ Neighborhood SES and the built environment may be important drivers of childhood obesity disparities. To accelerate progress in reducing obesity disparities, interventions must be tailored to the neighborhood contexts in which families live.
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Because of remarkable advances in the treatment of preterm birth, physicians increasingly encounter adult patients who were born preterm. However, research now shows that improved early survival may come at the expense of future health risks, including increased respiratory, cardiovascular, and kidney disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and neuropsychiatric disorders. ⋯ This Letter aims to promote awareness of this issue among physicians in order to inform long-term patient care and policy. The continued high (~10%) prevalence of preterm birth and unprecedented numbers who are surviving into adulthood mean that the long-term health effects will have a growing clinical and public health impact in the future.