Disparities in Childhood Obesity Prevalence and Spatial Clustering Related to Socioeconomic Factors in Isaan, Thailand

Hiranya Sritart (), Somchat Taertulakarn and Hiroyuki Miyazaki
Additional contact information
Hiranya Sritart: Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Thammasat University, Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand
Somchat Taertulakarn: Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Thammasat University, Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand
Hiroyuki Miyazaki: Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8568, Japan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Globally, rapid economic growth has contributed to an overall increase in the incidence of childhood obesity. Although the prevalence of obesity has been well recognized, the disparities related to a region’s socioeconomic environment in terms of the incidence of obesity are still less understood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the spatial pattern of childhood obesity and identify the potential associations between childhood obesity and socioeconomic environment in the northeastern region of Thailand, Isaan. Using nationally collected obesity data from children aged 0–5 years in 2019, we employed a geographic information system (GIS) to perform obesity cluster analysis at the smaller regional level, investigating a total of 322 districts in study area. Global and local statistical approaches were applied to calculate spatial associations between the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods and childhood obesity. The study revealed that 12.42% of the total area showed significant clusters at the district level, with high values observed in the western and northeastern areas. The results of the spatial statistical model revealed that childhood obesity was significantly positively associated with areas exhibiting high levels of socioeconomic environment factors. Identifying the associated factors and highlighting geographic regions with significant spatial clusters is a powerful approach towards understanding the role of location and expanding the knowledge on the factors contributing to childhood obesity. Our findings, as a first step, offer valuable references that could support policy-makers and local authorities in enhancing policy development with the aim of reducing childhood obesity and improving public health.

Keywords: childhood obesity; socioeconomic factor; spatial analysis; GIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/626/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/626/ (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:20:y:2022:i:1:p:626-:d:1019681

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 ().