SynthesisAmerican journal of preventive medicine2019
Systematic Review of Natural Experiments for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control.
Synthesis in American journal of preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Umbrella review of systematic reviews to inform the development and translation of community-based childhood obesity prevention interventions.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of policies or interventions that influence the school food environment on children's health and nonhealth outcomes: a systematic review.Nutrition reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Impact of environmental interventions based on social programs on physical activity levels: A systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Article
- Integrated methods for public health action tracking (IMPAcT): to understand and evaluate systems change in a public health context.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Adult obesity treatment and prevention: A trans-agency commentary on the research landscape, gaps, and future opportunities.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2024Review
- Heterogeneity in place effects on health: The case of time preferences and adolescent obesity.Economics and human biology · 2023Article
- Our Healthy Community Conceptual Framework and Intervention Model for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Municipalities.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Policies to prevent zoonotic spillover: protocol for a systematic scoping review of evaluative evidence.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Does an active play standard change childcare physical activity and healthy eating policies? A natural policy experiment.BMC public health · 2022Article
- A rapid review of the evidence for children's TV and online advertisement restrictions to fight obesity.Preventive medicine reports · 2022Article
- Ripple effects mapping: capturing the wider impacts of systems change efforts in public health.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Article
- A nationwide school fruit and vegetable policy and childhood and adolescent overweight: A quasi-natural experimental study.PLoS medicine · 2022Article
- Preventing Childhood Obesity in Primary Schools: A Realist Review from UK Perspective.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- Nutritional Strategies for Childhood Obesity Prevention.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- A secondary analysis of the childhood obesity prevention Cochrane Review through a wider determinants of health lens: implications for research funders, researchers, policymakers and practitioners.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2021Article
- The association between sugar-sweetened beverage availability in school vending machines and school staff sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.Preventive medicine reports · 2020Article
- Socioeconomic Inequalities in the Retail Food Environment around Schools in a Southern European Context.Nutrients · 2019Article
- Grappling With Complex Food Systems to Reduce Obesity: A US Public Health Challenge.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
contextThe National Academy of Medicine recommends childhood obesity prevention efforts making healthier options the passive choice. This review evaluated the effectiveness of population-level policies and programs from natural experiments for childhood obesity prevention. EVIDENCE ACQUISTION: The search included PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and EconLit from 2000 to 2017 for policies evaluated by natural experiments reporting childhood BMI outcomes. The studies were analyzed in 2017-2018. Interventions were classified by environmental focus (food/beverage, physical activity, or both) and stratified by setting (school, community, both). Risk of bias was evaluated for each study. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Of 33 natural experiments, most (73%) took place in the school setting only. The most common environmental focus in any setting was food/beverage (48%). All four studies that focused on both food/beverage and physical activity in schools demonstrated decreased prevalence of overweight/obesity or BMI z-score by 0.04-0.17. BMI decreased in all four studies in both school and community settings. The largest effect size was a decrease in BMI z-score of 0.5, but most were <0.25. The risk of bias was high for most (76%) studies. Most (63%) of the eight studies with low/medium risk of bias took place in the school setting focused on the food/beverage environment; effects on BMI were mixed.
conclusionsNatural experiments evaluating school-based policies focusing on both the food/beverage and physical activity environments (versus targeting only one) consistently showed improvement in BMI. However, most studies had high risk of bias, highlighting the need for improved methods for evaluation of natural experiments for childhood obesity prevention.
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Registered trials
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