Odoms-Young Angela M, Zenk Shannon, Mason Maryann
Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60612, USA.
Am J Prev Med. 2009 Apr;36(4 Suppl):S145-50. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2009.01.001.
Obesity is a major public health concern in the U.S. As compared to whites, minority populations are disproportionately at risk, with the highest prevalence rates of overweight and obesity occurring among African American women. Although researchers and policymakers argue that environmental approaches have the greatest potential to reverse the rising prevalence of obesity, critical gaps remain in our understanding of the complex mechanisms that underlie the associations between neighborhood food environments and weight status. A major challenge has been the need for reliable and valid measures to assess aspects of the neighborhood food environment that encourage or inhibit healthful eating behaviors and weight management. Investigators have made considerable gains in the development of tools and approaches to measure neighborhood food environments overall, but few studies focus on the specific challenges and issues associated with characterizing neighborhood food environments in communities of color. This paper highlights important considerations for measuring food environments in African-American neighborhoods and their implications for developing programmatic and policy solutions to reduce racial disparities in overweight.
肥胖是美国主要的公共卫生问题。与白人相比，少数族裔面临肥胖风险的比例更高，非裔美国女性中超重和肥胖的患病率最高。尽管研究人员和政策制定者认为，环境干预措施最有可能扭转肥胖患病率不断上升的趋势，但我们对邻里食物环境与体重状况之间关联的复杂机制的理解仍存在重大差距。一个主要挑战是需要可靠且有效的测量方法，以评估邻里食物环境中促进或抑制健康饮食行为及体重管理的各个方面。研究人员在开发用于整体测量邻里食物环境的工具和方法方面取得了显著进展，但很少有研究关注与描述有色人种社区邻里食物环境相关的具体挑战和问题。本文强调了在非裔美国人社区测量食物环境的重要考量因素，以及这些因素对制定减少超重方面种族差异的项目和政策解决方案的影响。
