An ecological study of the relationship between social and environmental determinants of obesity
Date
2002-06Author
Reidpath, Daniel
Burns, Cate
Garrard, Jan
Mahoney, Mary
Townsend, Mardie
Metadata
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Reidpath, D.D., Burns, C., Garrard, J., Mahoney, M. and Townsend, M. (2002) ‘An ecological study of the relationship between social and environmental determinants of obesity’, Health & Place, 8(2), pp. 141–145. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-8292(01)00028-4.
Abstract
There is growing concern with the increasing prevalence of obesity in industrialised countries, a trend that is more apparent in the poor than in the rich. In an ecological study, the relationship between an area measure of socioeconomic status (SES) and the density of fast-food outlets was examined as one possible explanation for the phenomenon. It was found that there was a dose-response between SES and the density of fast-food outlets, with people living in areas from the poorest SES category having 2.5 times the exposure to outlets than people in the wealthiest category. The findings are discussed.