Obesity prevalence in a cohort of women in early pregnancy from a neighbourhood perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The evidence of an association between neighbourhood deprivation and overweight is established for different populations. However no previous studies on neighbourhood variations in obesity in pregnant women were found. In this study we aimed to determine whether obesity during early pregnancy varied by neighbourhood economic status.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A register based study on 94,323 primiparous pregnant women in 586 Swedish neighbourhoods during the years 19922001. Multilevel technique was used to regress obesity prevalence on socioeconomic individual-level variables and the neighbourhood economic status. Five hundred and eighty-six neighbourhoods in the three major cities of Sweden, Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö, during 19922001, were included. The majority of neighbourhoods had a population of 4 00010 000 inhabitants.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seven per cent of the variation in obesity prevalence was at the neighbourhood level and the odds of being obese were almost doubled in poor areas.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings supports a community approach in the prevention of obesity in general and thus also in pregnant women.</p

Association between childhood community safety interventions and hospital injury records: a multilevel study

Study objective: To study municipal variations in children's injury risk and to assess the impact of safety promotion measures in general municipal, preschool, school, and leisure activity settings, on injury outcome. Design: A cohort study based on individual data on children's consumption of hospital care as a result of injury, the age and sex of each child, and socioeconomic data on each child's mother. Municipal characteristics—that is, population density and municipal safety measures—were also used. Connections between individual and community level determinants were analysed with multilevel logistic regression. Setting: Twenty five municipalities in Stockholm County in Sweden were studied. Participants: Children between 1 and 15 years old in 25 municipalities in Stockholm County, identified in the Total Population Register in Sweden. The study base included 1 055 179 person years. Main results: Municipality injury rates varied between 3.84–7.69 per 1000 person years among 1–6 year olds and, between 0.86–6.18 among 7–15 year olds. Implementation of multiple safety measures in a municipality had a significant effect on the risk of injury for preschool children. In municipalities that implemented few safety measures, the risk of injury was 33% higher than in municipalities that implemented many. A similar effect, though insignificant, was observed in the school aged children. Conclusions: This study shows that how municipalities organise their safety activities affect injury rates. Sweden has a comparatively low injury rate and thus, in a European perspective, there is an obvious potential for municipal safety efforts

Optimal design in average for inference in generalized linear models

D A -Optimality, design of experiment, design weights, factorial experiments, Generalized Linear Model, optimal design in average,