title: Poverty and childhood overweight in California Assembly districts.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goal of the present study was to determine the association between childhood overweight and area-based socioeconomic indicators in California Assembly districts.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional ecologic study.
  
  
  METHODS
  California public school students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Poverty and demographic data for California Assembly districts were based on the 2000 Census and obtained from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
  
  
  METHODS
  Overall and race- and ethnicity-specific rates of childhood overweight for California Assembly districts (n=80) were based on the 2004 statewide Fitnessgram evaluation of California public school students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Poverty was significantly associated with childhood overweight in California Assembly districts. At the Assembly district scale, childhood overweight was significantly associated with percent residents below poverty for the entire population (r=0.82), and with the race/ethnicity-specific overweight prevalence for African-American (r=0.43), Latino (r=0.61) and White (r=0.54) populations. There was also evidence that childhood overweight in California Assembly districts was spatially clustered. Linear regression models confirmed that percent of residents below poverty was an independent predictor of a higher prevalence of childhood overweight for the entire population. The results of race/ethnicity-specific models confirmed that the association between area poverty and childhood overweight was not explained by differences in the risk of overweight among specific race/ethnicity groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Area-based measures of socioeconomic status can be used to identify problem areas and can be used for optimal targeting of public health prevention and intervention efforts.
authors.affiliation: Center for Public Health Nutrition, 305 Raitt Hall #353410, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3410, USA. Electronic address: adamdrew@u.washington.edu.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Drewnowski
authors.affiliation: Center for Public Health Nutrition, 305 Raitt Hall #353410, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3410, USA.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rehm
authors.affiliation: Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Chi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.affiliation: California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Davis, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Goldstein
mesh_terms: D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D050177:Overweight / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D011204:Poverty Areas; D015995:Prevalence; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors