Neighbourhood socio-economic status and the prevalence of overweight Canadian children and youth.

BACKGROUND The purposes of this study are to determine (i) if neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES) is systematically related to the prevalence of overweight children and youth in Canada, (ii) if the factors accounting for the apparent relationship have face validity, and (iii) if neighbourhood SES has an independent influence on this distribution. METHODS Cross-sectional data from Cycle 4 (2000/2001) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth were used. Children and youth aged 5 to 17 were included. Overweight was established using age and sex cut-off points. Neighbourhood socioeconomic data were obtained from the Statistics Canada 2001 Dissemination Area databases and SES quartiles constructed using a composite of socio-economic variables. Hierarchical non-linear modelling was used to test for independent neighbourhood effects. RESULTS A gradient of increasing overweight prevalence by decreasing neighbourhood SES quartiles was observed (24% high SES, 30% mid-high SES, 33% mid-low SES, 35% low SES). Controlling for individual age, gender, family income and education hierarchical analysis found that a child's odds of being overweight increases if living in a low versus a high SES neighbourhood (OR=1.29, 95% CI=1.14-1.46). INTERPRETATION The prevalence of child and youth overweight in Canada is inversely and statistically significantly related to neighbourhood SES. Independent effects indicate that neighbourhood characteristics directly influence the odds of being overweight. This research suggests that consideration of opportunity structures that exist in different types of neighbourhoods is fundamentally important to health promotion and disease prevention strategies.