Development of a neighborhood obesogenic built environment characteristics index for the Netherlands

Abstract Objective Environmental factors that drive obesity are often studied individually, whereas obesogenic environments are likely to consist of multiple factors from food and physical activity (PA) environments. This study aimed to compose and describe a comprehensive, theory‐based, expert‐informed index to quantify obesogenicity for all neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Methods The Obesogenic Built Environment CharacterisTics (OBCT) index consists of 17 components. The index was calculated as an average of componential scores across both food and PA environments and was scaled from 0 to... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Lam, Thao Minh
Wagtendonk, Alfred J.
den Braver, Nicolette R.
Karssenberg, Derek
Vaartjes, Ilonca
Timmermans, Erik J.
Beulens, Joline W. J.
Lakerveld, Jeroen
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
Reihe/Periodikum: Obesity ; volume 31, issue 1, page 214-224 ; ISSN 1930-7381 1930-739X
Verlag/Hrsg.: Wiley
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27629293
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/oby.23610

Abstract Objective Environmental factors that drive obesity are often studied individually, whereas obesogenic environments are likely to consist of multiple factors from food and physical activity (PA) environments. This study aimed to compose and describe a comprehensive, theory‐based, expert‐informed index to quantify obesogenicity for all neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Methods The Obesogenic Built Environment CharacterisTics (OBCT) index consists of 17 components. The index was calculated as an average of componential scores across both food and PA environments and was scaled from 0 to 100. The index was visualized and summarized with sensitivity analysis for weighting methods. Results The OBCT index for all 12,821 neighborhoods was right‐skewed, with a median of 44.6 (IQR = 10.1). Obesogenicity was lower in more urbanized neighborhoods except for the extremely urbanized neighborhoods (>2500 addresses/km 2 ), where obesogenicity was highest. The overall OBCT index score was moderately correlated with the food environment (Spearman ρ = 0.55, p <0.05) and with the PA environment (ρ = 0.38, p <0.05). Hierarchical weighting increased index correlations with the PA environment but decreased correlations with the food environment. Conclusions The novel OBCT index and its comprehensive environmental scores are potentially useful tools to quantify obesogenicity of neighborhoods.