Modeling social transmission dynamics of unhealthy behaviors for evaluating prevention and treatment interventions on childhood obesity.

ABSTRACT: Research evidence indicates that obesity has spread through social networks, but lever points for interventions based on overlapping networks are not well studied. The objective of our research was to construct and parameterize a system dynamics model of the social transmission of behaviors through adult and youth influence in order to explore hypotheses and identify plausible lever points for future childhood obesity intervention research. Our objectives were: (1) to assess the sensitivity of childhood overweight and obesity prevalence to peer and adult social transmission rates, and (2) to test the effect of combinations of prevention and treatment interventions on the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity. To address the first objective, we conducted two-way sensitivity analyse

SUBMITTER: Frerichs LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3866177 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature