State-Issued Identification Cards Reveal Patterns in Adult Weight Status

Daniel S. Morris, Eric C. Main, Jenine K. Harris, Abraham Moland and Curtis Cude
Additional contact information
Daniel S. Morris: School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201, USA
Eric C. Main: Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division, Portland, OR 97232, USA
Jenine K. Harris: George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, MO 63119, USA
Abraham Moland: School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201, USA
Curtis Cude: Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division, Portland, OR 97232, USA

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Background: State-issued identification cards are a promising data source for neighborhood-level obesity estimates. Methods: We used information from three million Oregon state-issued identification cards to compute age-adjusted estimates of average adult body mass index (BMI) for each census tract in the state. We used multivariate linear regression to identify associations between weight status and population characteristics, food access, commuting behavior, and geography. Results: Together, home values, education, race, ethnicity, car commuting, and rural-urban commuting area (RUCA) explained 86% of the variation in BMI among tracts. BMI was lower in areas with higher home values and greater educational attainment, and higher in areas with more workers commuting by car. Discussion: Our findings are consistent with other research on socioeconomic disparities in obesity. This demonstrates state-issued identification cards are a promising data source for BMI surveillance and may offer new insight into the association between weight status and economic and environmental factors. Public health agencies should explore options for developing their own obesity estimates from identification card data.

Keywords: BMI (Body Mass Index); obesity; surveillance; driver card; driver license; identification card (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/6/6388/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/6/6388/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:12:y:2015:i:6:p:6388-6402:d:50832

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().