Program in Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Obes Rev. 2017 Jul;18 Suppl 2:39-46. doi: 10.1111/obr.12579.
The rise of childhood obesity in Latin America calls for research capacity to understand, monitor and implement strategies, policies and programmes to address it.
The objective of the study was to assess current research capacity in Latin America related to childhood obesity, nutrition and physical activity.
We conducted a search of peer-reviewed articles on childhood obesity in Latin America with at least one Latin American author from 2010 to May 2015. We coded 484 published articles for author affiliation, study subjects' nationality, research topic and study design and extracted a series of networks per research topic, study design and collaborating country for each of the countries.
Obesity is the most frequently explored topic. Nutrition and obesity are somewhat better developed compared with physical activity and sedentary behaviour. There are numerous observational and cross-sectional studies, indicating either a lack of capacity required for more complex research or the extent of the problem and associated factors is still unknown. The low number of intervention studies and the near absence of policy articles suggest a void in research capacity.
For childhood obesity, there is a clear need to build research capacity that documents the current state of the problem and design evidence-based prevention and intervention efforts.
拉丁美洲儿童肥胖率的上升，要求我们具备研究能力，以了解、监测并实施相关战略、政策和项目来解决这一问题。
本研究旨在评估拉丁美洲在儿童肥胖、营养和身体活动方面的现有研究能力。
我们对 2010 年至 2015 年 5 月期间至少有一位拉丁美洲作者发表的关于拉丁美洲儿童肥胖的同行评议文章进行了检索。我们对 484 篇已发表的文章进行了作者所属机构、研究对象的国籍、研究主题和研究设计的编码，并为每个国家的每个研究主题、研究设计和合作国家提取了一系列网络。
肥胖是最常被探讨的主题。与身体活动和久坐行为相比，营养和肥胖方面的研究稍显成熟。有大量的观察性和横断面研究，这表明要么缺乏更复杂研究所需的能力，要么问题的严重程度及其相关因素仍不清楚。干预研究的数量较少，政策文章几乎不存在，这表明研究能力存在空白。
在儿童肥胖方面，显然需要建立研究能力，以记录当前问题的状况，并设计基于证据的预防和干预措施。
