Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention: A Framework to Inform Decision Making

To battle the obesity epidemic in America, health care professionals and policymakers need relevant, useful data on the effectiveness of obesity prevention policies and programs. Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention identifies a new approach to decision making and research on obesity prevention to use a systems perspective to gain a broader understanding of the context of obesity and the many factors that influence it.

• Front Matter
• Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Obesity Prevention Strategies in Concept and Practice
• 3 Rationale for and Overview of the L.E.A.D. Framework
• 4 Defining the Problem: The Importance of Taking a Systems Perspective
• 5 Specifying Questions and Locating Evidence: An Expanded View
• 6 Evaluating Evidence
• 7 Assembling Evidence and Informing Decisions
• 8 Opportunities to Generate Evidence
• 9 Next Steps
• 10 Conclusions and Recommendations
• Appendix A: Acronyms and Glossary
• Appendix B: Other Evidence Projects
• Appendix C: Review of Existing Reviews on Obesity Prevention
• Appendix D: Information Sources for Locating Evidence
• Appendix E: An In-Depth Look at Study Designs and Methodologies
• Appendix F: Agendas from Two Workshops
• Appendix G: Committee Member Biographical Sketches
• Index