Moriarty Madeline T, Law William R, Nadolski Jeremy, Hockenberry Lester
Family Christian Health Center 31 West 155th St, Harvey, IL 60426, United States of America.
Benedictine University, 5700 College Rd., Lisle, IL 60532, United States of America.
Prev Med Rep. 2025 Mar 26;53:103044. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2025.103044. eCollection 2025 May.
The changes with pediatric obesity rates during the COVID pandemic with patients from Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) clinics are underrepresented in the literature. FQHC patients are often subject to many adverse social determinants of health (SDOH). We sought to characterize changes in obesity rates and weight categories amongst children at a FQHC, comparing a COVID pandemic cohort to a pre-pandemic cohort.
FQHC retrospective clinic data were analyzed for two separate cohorts of children aged 4 to 5 years: Pre-pandemic (2016-2019) and Pandemic (2019-2022). BMI values, BMI percentiles, and obesity rates were compared. Changes between weight categories for individual children were compared. Study participant SDOH related data was obtained from the electronic records, including individual zip codes. Aggregate study entry obesity rates for both cohorts were significantly greater than the national obesity rate.
During each cohort's three-year period, BMI values increased significantly. There was no significant difference between the cohorts in these changes. Analysis of individual children's changes in weight categories revealed that significantly more children in the pandemic cohort demonstrated shifts between obese and other weight categories compared to the pre-pandemic cohort during comparable 3-year study periods.
This study is one of the first to investigate the details related to the changes with weight categories with a FQHC pandemic cohort. We suggest that these patterns warrant further study into the complex interactions of health inequities that are related to race and social determinants of health, aggravated by public health crises such as the COVID pandemic.
关于新冠疫情期间联邦合格健康中心（FQHC）诊所患者的儿童肥胖率变化，文献中的描述较少。FQHC的患者往往面临许多不利的健康社会决定因素（SDOH）。我们试图描述一家FQHC中儿童肥胖率和体重类别变化的特征，将新冠疫情期间的队列与疫情前的队列进行比较。
对FQHC两个不同队列的4至5岁儿童的回顾性临床数据进行分析：疫情前（2016 - 2019年）和疫情期间（2019 - 2022年）。比较体重指数（BMI）值、BMI百分位数和肥胖率。比较个体儿童体重类别之间的变化。从电子记录中获取研究参与者与SDOH相关的数据，包括个人邮政编码。两个队列的总体研究入组肥胖率均显著高于全国肥胖率。
在每个队列的三年期间，BMI值均显著增加。这些变化在两个队列之间没有显著差异。对个体儿童体重类别变化的分析显示，在可比的3年研究期间，与疫情前队列相比，疫情期间队列中有显著更多的儿童在肥胖和其他体重类别之间发生了变化。
本研究是首批调查与FQHC疫情期间队列体重类别变化相关细节的研究之一。我们认为，这些模式值得进一步研究与种族和健康社会决定因素相关的健康不平等的复杂相互作用，这些相互作用因新冠疫情等公共卫生危机而加剧。
