Recorded presentation

Aviva Must, PhD¹, Elizabeth Metallinos-Katsaras, PhD, RD², and Sarah M. Phillips, MS, MPH¹. (1) Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111, (2) Nutrition, School for Health Studies, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115, (617) 521-2708, metallin@simmons.edu

Increasingly, public health practitioners must influence policy makers to retain and expand efforts to control the epidemic of obesity, physical inactivity, unhealthful eating, and dieting behavior among US children. Specifically, state-based surveillance on attitudes and behaviors of youth represent a critical component of efforts to reverse current trends and to target state resources to problem areas. With funding from the CDC, we conducted an evaluation of current survey activities and surveillance systems of individual behaviors and attitudes related to the domains of nutrition, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and weight status among school-age children. We received responses from at least one department in all 50 states, with 96% of departments of health (DOH's) or education (DOE's) responding. Follow-up interviews conducted in 49 states identified 48 surveys in use, in addition to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS, reported in 88% of states). Most commonly surveyed grade-levels (non-YRBS) by DPH/DOEs are grades 4 and up; 35%-57% of DPH/DOEs reported surveys of these grades. Physical activity is the domain with the highest coverage, followed by nutrition, weight status, and sedentary behavior, respectively. Behaviors rather than attitudes were the aspects of these domains predominately targeted. A thorough understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in current surveys and surveillance systems will assist in developing recommendations to improve and expand surveillance at the state level. Only 11% of DOH and DOE personnel interviewed identified advocacy as a benefit of their surveillance activities, suggesting underutilization of this potentially powerful tool for gaining support for prevention efforts.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the need for a comprehensive enumeration of state-based survey & surveillance activities
• Describe a strategy for obtaining specific information from key personnel at state agencies
• Describe and apply a method to assess the content of nutrition and physical activity survey

Keywords: Nutrition, Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation