title: Worksite Environmental Interventions for Obesity Prevention and Control: Evidence from Group Randomized Trials.
abstract: Worksites provide multiple advantages to prevent and treat obesity and to test environmental interventions to tackle its multiple causal factors. We present a literature review of group-randomized and non-randomized trials that tested worksite environmental, multiple component interventions for obesity prevention and control paying particular attention to the conduct of formative research prior to intervention development. The evidence on environmental interventions on measures of obesity appears to be strong since most of the studies have a low (4/8) and unclear (2/8) risk of bias. Among the studies reviewed whose potential risk of bias was low, the magnitude of the effect was modest and sometimes in the unexpected direction. None of the four studies describing an explicit formative research stage with clear integration of findings into the intervention was able to demonstrate an effect on the main outcome of interest. We present alternative explanation for the findings and recommendations for future research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Epidemiology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 265 Crittenden Blvd., CU 420644, Rochester, NY, 14642-0644, USA. diana_fernandez@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Isabel Diana
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Epidemiology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 265 Crittenden Blvd., CU 420644, Rochester, NY, 14642-0644, USA. Adan_Becerra@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Adan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Becerra
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 265 Crittenden Blvd., CU 420644, Rochester, NY, 14642-0644, USA. Nancy_Chin@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Nancy P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Chin
keywords: Body fat; Body weight; Environmental interventions; Food environment; Formative research; Group-randomized trials; Obesity; Obesity control; Obesity prevention; Physical activity environment; Workplace; Worksites