Impact of Built Environments on Body Weight (the Moving to Health Study): Protocol for a Retrospective Longitudinal Observational Study
Open Access
- 1 May 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by JMIR Publications Inc. in JMIR Research Protocols
- Vol. 9 (5), e16787
- https://doi.org/10.2196/16787
Abstract
Background: Studies assessing the impact of built environments on body weight are often limited by modest power to detect residential effects that are small for individuals but may nonetheless comprise large attributable risks. Objective: We used data extracted from electronic health records to construct a large retrospective cohort of patients. This cohort will be used to explore both the impact of moving between environments and the long-term impact of changing neighborhood environments. Methods: We identified members with at least 12 months of Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) membership and at least one weight measurement in their records during a period between January 2005 and April 2017 in which they lived in King County, Washington. Information on member demographics, address history, diagnoses, and clinical visits data (including weight) was extracted. This paper describes the characteristics of the adult (aged 18-89 years) cohort constructed from these data. Results: We identified 229,755 adults representing nearly 1.2 million person-years of follow-up. The mean age at baseline was 45 years, and 58.0% (133,326/229,755) were female. Nearly one-fourth of people (55,150/229,755) moved within King County at least once during the follow-up, representing 84,698 total moves. Members tended to move to new neighborhoods matching their origin neighborhoods on residential density and property values. Conclusions: Data were available in the KPWA database to construct a very large cohort based in King County, Washington. Future analyses will directly examine associations between neighborhood conditions and longitudinal changes in body weight and diabetes as well as other health conditions.This publication has 50 references indexed in Scilit:
- Characterizing the food environment: pitfalls and future directionsPublic Health Nutrition, 2013
- Effects of the built environment on childhood obesity: The case of urban recreational trails and crimeEconomics & Human Biology, 2013
- A combined comorbidity score predicted mortality in elderly patients better than existing scoresJournal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2011
- Effects of urban sprawl on obesityJournal of Health Economics, 2010
- The Association between Obesity and Urban Food EnvironmentsJournal of Urban Health, 2010
- Individual and socio-environmental determinants of overweight and obesity in Urban CanadaHealth & Place, 2010
- Neighborhood Food Environment and Walkability Predict Obesity in New York CityEnvironmental Health Perspectives, 2009
- Effect of Individual or Neighborhood Disadvantage on the Association Between Neighborhood Walkability and Body Mass IndexAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2009
- Do green areas affect health? Results from a Danish survey on the use of green areas and health indicatorsHealth & Place, 2007
- The (mis)estimation of neighborhood effects: causal inference for a practicable social epidemiologySocial Science & Medicine (1982), 2004