Randomized Controlled Trial of a Mailed Toolkit to Increase Use of Body Mass Index Percentiles to Screen for Childhood Obesity

Details

• Journal Article:
  Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD)
• Personal Author:
  Dennison, Barbara A. ; Nicholas, Joseph ; de Long, Rachel ; Prokorym, Megan ; Brissette, Ian
• Description:
  Introduction
  
  Despite epidemic increases in childhood obesity rates, many providers fail to diagnose obesity. Body mass index (BMI)-for-age percentiles are the recommended screening test. We evaluated whether mailing a toolkit to physicians would increase use of sex-specific BMI-for-age percentiles to screen for childhood obesity.
  
  Methods
  
  We assigned a random sample of family physicians and pediatricians from New York State’s medical licensing database to either intervention or control groups in the summer of 2004. At baseline and at follow-up, we sent physicians a survey that asked how often they used various screening methods to identify childhood obesity. Between the surveys, we sent physicians in the intervention group a toolkit that consisted of professional guidelines for childhood obesity screening, a tool for calculating BMI, BMI-for-age growth charts, and educational information.
  
  Results
  
  At follow-up, more physicians in the intervention group than in the control group reported using BMI percentiles to screen for childhood obesity. Compared with physicians in the control group, physicians in the intervention group had a larger increase in their routine use of BMI percentiles to screen children aged 2 to 5, 6 to 11, and 12 to 20 years, although the differences in the older 2 groups did not attain statistical significance.
  
  Conclusion
  
  Directly mailing an educational toolkit to physicians can have a small but positive effect on clinical practice.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Body Mass Index Child Child, Preschool Education, Medical, Continuing Humans Mass Screening Obesity Pediatrics Physicians Young Adult

  More +
• Source:
  Prev Chronic Dis. 6(4).
• ISSN:
  1545-1151
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  6
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  Preventing Chronic Disease
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0616d85e37a0d0065710fbd9c503764eac4f1027be41f01a553cc157807a16116513d1f85982318b74e60bd6373241434ac1f46b04851cbb98cdc3478b887fd3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/20400/cdc_20400_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 619.80 KB ]