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Abstract Background Community-based obesity treatment programs have become an important response to address child obesity; however the majority of these programs are small, efficacy trials, few are translated into real-world situations (i.e., dissemination trials). Here we report the short-term impact of a scaled-up, community-based obesity treatment program on children's weight and weight-related behaviours disseminated under real world conditions. Methods Children age 6–15 years with a body mass index (BMI) ≥85th percentile with no co-morbidities, and their parents/carers participated in a twice weekly, 10-week after-school child obesity treatment program between 2009 and 2012. Outcome information included measures of weight and weight-related behaviours. Analyses were adjusted for clustering and socio-demographic variables. Results Overall, 2,812 children participated (54.2 % girls; M age 10.1 (2.0) years; M attaendance 12.9 (5.9) sessions). Beneficial changes among all children included BMI (−0.65 kg/m 2 ), BMI-z-score (−0.11), waist circumference (−1.8 cm), and WtHtr (−0.02); self-esteem (+2.7units), physical activity (+1.2 days/week), screen time (−4.8 h/week), and unhealthy foods index (−2.4units) (all p < 0.001). Children who completed ≥ 75 % of the program were more likely to have beneficial changes in BMI, self-esteem and diet (sugar sweetened beverages, lollies/chocolate, hot chips and takeaways) compared with children completing <75 % of the program. Conclusions This is one of the few studies to report outcomes of a government-funded, program at scale in a real-world setting, and shows that investment in a community-based child obesity treatment program holds potential to produce short-term changes in weight and weight-related behaviours. The findings support government investment in this health priority area, and demonstrate that community-based models of child obesity treatment are a promising adjunctive intervention to health service provision at all levels of care.

Purpose. To examine how perceptions of the local neighborhood relate to adolescents' walking and cycling. Design. Exploratory cross-sectional study. Setting. Birth cohort from the Nepean Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Subjects. Three hundred forty-seven adolescents (79.1% response rate; 49.6% boys; mean age = 13.0 ± 0.2 years) and their parents. Measures. Self-report and parental-report questionnaires. Results. Multiple linear regressions, adjusted for level of maternal education, revealed that boys who reported having many peers to hang out with locally, cycled for recreation (β = 0.242, p = .006) or for transport (β = 0.141, p = .046) more often, and walked for transport for longer (β = 0.129, p = .024) on weekdays. For girls this variable was related to cycling for recreation on weekends (β = 0.164, p = .006) and walking to school (β = 0.118, p = .002). Adolescents who waved/talked to neighbors walked for transport more often (boys, β = 0.149, p = .037; girls, β = 0.119, p = .012). Girls who perceived local roads to be safe spent more time walking for transport on weekdays (β = 0.183, p = .007) and for exercise on weekends (β = 0.184, p = .034). Parents' perception of heavy traffic was negatively associated with boys' walking for transport (β = −0.138, p = .037) and many aspects of girls' walking and cycling. Conclusion. Social interaction and road safety may be important predictors of adolescents' walking and cycling in their neighborhood. Limitations are the use of self-report and cross-sectional data. Longitudinal studies may clarify these relations.

AbstractSystem dynamics models are increasingly being used to understand the underlying dynamics of populations and hypothesize causal system structures that can account for changes in a population's disease burden. A considerable challenge for public health modeling is understanding how changes in underlying determinants of a problem impact a population's measure of public health, such as the prevalence of a disease. Additionally, it is common to have limited insights and data for the dynamics of these determinants. This article presents an analytical method of estimating underlying distributions using model‐generated prevalence relying on a minimum number of model stratum. This method models the evolution of the underlying distribution parameters by combining statistical distribution theory and system dynamics models. This article provides general equations for various applications and an in‐depth example using body mass index. © 2023 The Authors. System Dynamics Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of System Dynamics Society.

AbstractThis report describes the process used at the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities Health Issues Special Interest Research Group's 2009 Roundtable to increase awareness of the importance of, and opportunities for, knowledge translation to improve the health of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) through international collaboration. The "knowledge‐to‐action cycle" (i.e., knowledge translation) formed the basis for the roundtable discussions. The thematic areas discussed included identification and reduction of disability in adults who also have epilepsy, obesity in children and adults, adapting health promotion materials and approaches, and policy and practice healthcare management—all related to individuals with ID. The topics were explored, extant information presented, and agreements reached for further work and collaborations in each of the topic areas. It was noted that the roundtable's use of the knowledge‐to‐action framework helped the participants focus on bringing together existing knowledge in ways that can meaningfully influence policy and practice. A pre‐workshop web‐based forum allowed participants to share information and recognize the need for synthesis and tool development. Multidisciplinary working groups that are international in scope can be useful in continuing to work toward increasing awareness of the knowledge‐to‐action cycle and promoting collaborative health research in the area of health and ID.