PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Qin, Wenzhe
AU  - Wang, Lu
AU  - Xu, Lingzhong
AU  - Sun, Long
AU  - Li, Jiajia
AU  - Zhang, Jiao
AU  - Shao, Hui
TI  - An exploratory spatial analysis of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in Shandong, China
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028152
DP  - 2019 Aug 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e028152
VI  - 9
IP  - 8
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/8/e028152.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/8/e028152.full
SO  - BMJ Open2019 Aug 01; 9
AB  - Objective Identifying the spatial patterns of childhood overweight/obesity (OW/OB) can help to guide resource allocation for preventive intervention in China. This study aims to estimate rates of childhood OW/OB across counties within Shandong Province, using geographic techniques to identify sex-specific spatial patterns of childhood OW/OB as well as the presence of spatial clusters.Design Cross-sectional study.Setting Shandong Province in China.Participants and methods Data on 6 216 076 children and adolescents aged 7–18 years from the Primary and Secondary Schoolchildren Physical Examination Database for Shandong Province were used in this study. Spatial patterns of sex-specific prevalence of childhood OW/OB were mapped. Global autocorrelation statistic (Moran’s I) and the Local Indicator of Spatial Association (LISA) were applied to assess the degree of spatial autocorrelation.Results The overall prevalence of childhood OW/OB in Shandong province were 15.05% and 9.23%, respectively. Maps of the sex-specific prevalence of OW/OB demonstrate a marked geographical variation of childhood OW/OB in different regions. Prevalence of childhood OW/OB had a significant positive spatial autocorrelation among both boys and girls. LISA analysis identified significant clusters (or ‘hot spots’) of childhood OW/OB in the eastern coastal region, central region and southwestern region.Conclusions The prevalence of childhood OW/OB is highly spatially clustered. Geographically focused appropriate intervention should be introduced in current childhood OW/OB prevention and control strategy.