SynthesisInternational journal of health geographics2021
Associations between the built environment and obesity: an umbrella review.
Synthesis in International journal of health geographics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
75 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Associations Between the Built Environment and Adult Obesity and the Mediating Role of Physical Activity: A Systematic Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Pooled it
- Exposome-Wide Association Study of Body Mass Index Using a Novel Meta-Analytical Approach for Random Forest Models.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review on the relationship between the built environment and children's quality of life.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- Non-traditional data sources in obesity research: a systematic review of their use in the study of obesogenic environments.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2023Pooled it
- The neighbourhood built environment and health-related fitness: a narrative systematic review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022Pooled it
- Photovoice as a Methodology in Obesity Research: A Scoping Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Article
- The role of rurality and area-level disadvantage in lifestyle risk factors and psychological well-being among cancer survivors: findings from the 2021 NCI HINTS-SEER.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2026Article
- Disparities of children's obesogenic environments in Louisiana.International journal of health geographics · 2026Article
- Differences in built environmental exposures between three million older adults with and without cardiovascular diseases: a nationwide cross-sectional study in the Netherlands.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The Role of Fathers in the Intergenerational Transmission of Obesity.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Prevalence of obesity and its associated factors among healthcare workers in Malaysia: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The Association between the Obesogenic Environment and BMI Independent of Familial Factors: A Cross-Sectional Twin Study.Obesity facts · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic and Structural Barriers to Addressing Obesity in Communities: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.Circulation · 2026Review
- Spatial analysis of the association between convenience store density and the prevalence of obesity and hypertension in South Korea.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Advancing knowledge, maps and tools to address obesity and related socio-economic disparities in Europe: the OBCT project.Global health action · 2025Article
- Association between the Dutch Obesogenic Built-environmental CharacterisTics (OBCT) index and 14-year cardiovascular disease incidence: a population-based cohort study of 4.4 million adults.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Article
- Measurement tools to assess the obesogenic environment in neighborhood: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Life-course socioeconomic status and obesity: scoping review.Population health metrics · 2025Article
- The UK Food Environment: A Systematic Review of Domains, Methodologies, and Outcomes.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Review
- Does Neighborhood Redevelopment Reduce Obesity? Evidence From Jordan Downs in Watts, Los Angeles.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2025Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn the past two decades, the built environment emerged as a conceptually important determinant of obesity. As a result, an abundance of studies aiming to link environmental characteristics to weight-related outcomes have been published, and multiple reviews have attempted to summarise these studies under different scopes and domains. We set out to summarise the accumulated evidence across domains by conducting a review of systematic reviews on associations between any aspect of the built environment and overweight or obesity.
methodsSeven databases were searched for eligible publications from the year 2000 onwards. We included systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses and pooled analyses of observational studies in the form of cross-sectional, case-control, longitudinal cohort, ecological, descriptive, intervention studies and natural experiments. We assessed risk of bias and summarised results structured by built environmental themes such as food environment, physical activity environment, urban-rural disparity, socioeconomic status and air pollution.
resultsFrom 1850 initial hits, 32 systematic reviews were included, most of which reported equivocal evidence for associations. For food- and physical activity environments, associations were generally very small or absent, although some characteristics within these domains were consistently associated with weight status such as fast-food exposure, urbanisation, land use mix and urban sprawl. Risks of bias were predominantly high.
conclusionsThus far, while most studies have not been able to confirm the assumed influence of built environments on weight, there is evidence for some obesogenic environmental characteristics. Registration: This umbrella review was registered on PROSPERO under ID CRD42019135857.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.