Longitudinal designs to study neighbourhood effects on the development of obesity: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

IntroductionThe prevalence of obesity has increased significantly in the last three decades and became an important public health concern. Evidence of weight status variability at the neighbourhood level has led researchers to look more precisely at the characteristics of local geographic areas that might influence energy balance related behaviours, giving rise to the field of the ‘neighbourhood effect’ in public health research. Among an abundant literature about neighbourhood effects and obesity, we propose a protocol for a scoping review that will aim at determining how temporal measurements of residential neighbourhood exposure, individual covariates and weight outcome are integrated in longitudinal designs.Methods and analysisA list of relevant citations will be obtained through a comprehensive systematic database search in Pubmed, Web of Science and Embase. The search strategy will be designed using a broad definition of neighbourhood to take into account the heterogeneity of this concept in research. Two investigators will screen titles, abstracts and entire publications using predetermined eligibility criteria yielding a list of selected publications. Data from the publications included in the scoping review will be charted according to bibliographic information, study population, exposure, outcomes and results.Discussion and conclusionTo our knowledge, our protocol will yield the first scoping review regarding longitudinal designs of neighbourhood effect on obesity. Describing how longitudinal designs include temporal measurements of exposure, covariates and outcome is a necessary step in the quest to determine if or which contextual characteristics are likely to be involved in the development of obesity. Such information would bring new knowledge to complement current aetiological investigations and would contribute to enhancing resource allocation strategies for stakeholders in developing relevant interventions to prevent obesity and its negative impacts.

Neighbourhood effects on obesity: scoping review of time-varying outcomes and exposures in longitudinal designs

“…We decided to use a scoping review approach because the large number of study designs that were used in the literature makes it difficult to sum and compare results quantitatively 28. Methods for this review are described in greater detail in the protocol 29. A concise description of the methods is provided in the following sections.…”

“…The charting process was conducted according to the steps described in the previously published protocol 29. The construction of the chart also includes an iterative procedure of improvement, in order to consider other types of longitudinal designs that were not expected prior to the charting.…”

Device-Measured Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviors, Built Environment, and Adiposity Gain in Older Women: A Seven-Year Prospective Study

“…Our findings do not prove that intrapersonal or perceived environmental factors influenced relevant changes in the adiposity of our sample. The available literature on this topic evidence a lack of strong associations of environmental factors with obesity indicators, mainly due to methodological limitations such as the lack of longitudinal studies allowing the inference of causality [ 35 ]. A recently published review of longitudinal studies identified 33 articles examining the neighborhood effects on obesity outcomes in the adult population [ 12 ].…”