Multilevel Systems-oriented Childhood Obesity Study in China

Directed by Youga Wang, PhD, MD, MS, this international and multi-disciplinary collaborative research projet is one of the three key projects in the $16 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) U54 center grant. Yang served as the original principal investigator (PI) and founding director of the U54 childhood obesity center based at Johns Hopkins University.

Main study aims are:

• To study the impact of the contextual factors (e.g., national and regional food policy, food accessibility, food price, food marketing, social norms) on children's dietary intakes using an innovative, integrated conceptual framework and novel statistical approaches including systems analysis.

• To examine synergistic multilevel interplay between the social, environmental, family, and individual factors, that affect children's energy balance related behaviors, and thus affect adiposity outcomes at individual and population levels.

• To study how children and families make food intake decisions considering their individual, family, community, and social environment factors, and why some groups may respond to their food environment differently.

• To use simulation models to identify and test promising intervention/policy strategies suggested by the results of aims 1-3, taking into account what we learn about the role of non-linearities, feedback loops and recursive causal relations not well studied in the literature.