A searchable online registry of diet and physical activity measures relevant to childhood obesity research
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) has launched a free, searchable online registry of measures and resources to use in childhood obesity research.
Public health researchers need standard measures in order to describe and monitor obesity trends and related factors and evaluate interventions. Measures are defined broadly as tools and methodologies to assess diet, physical activity, and the environments in which these behaviors occur. NCCOR’s Measures Registry is an interactive web tool developed to facilitate access to available measures, help identify gaps in measures, and encourage the development of new measures. Details about each measure include validity, reliability, protocols for use, and settings, geographic areas, and populations in which the measure has been used.
The Measures Registry includes almost 750 measures in four domains: individual dietary behavior, food environment, individual physical activity, and physical activity environment. Types of measures in the Registry include questionnaires, instruments, diaries, logs, electronic devices, direct observation of people or environments, protocols, and analytic techniques. Users can search for measures and details about how to use them, find measures in development, link to other measures registries and related resources, and submit new measures for inclusion.
“Today, nearly one in five U.S. children is obese – a number that’s increased four-fold in the last 40 years. We need to use the power of research to find ways to address this serious public health problem,” said National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Dr. Francis Collins. “This new registry will encourage researchers to share and use common measures, thereby accelerating efforts to curb our nation’s epidemic of childhood obesity.”
The Measures Registry is available at www.nccor.org/measures.
NCCOR is a collaboration among the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to accelerate progress on reversing the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. Through the collective efforts of these organizations, NCCOR aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of research on childhood obesity.
NCCOR recently launched another resource for childhood obesity researchers, the Catalogue of Surveillance Systems: www.nccor.org/css. This interactive web tool provides one-stop access to a wide array of obesity-related data sources at multiple levels. Using the Catalogue, researchers can identify data resources, compare attributes across systems, and link to other resources of interest. A webinar on the features and uses of the Catalogue is scheduled for May 5. To register, visit www.nccor.org/registerCSS. The Catalogue and the Registry are complementary tools intended to increase obesity researchers’ productivity.
Please visit www.nccor.org for more information about the Registry, a full list of NCCOR-led projects, upcoming events, and childhood obesity research highlights.