Thursday, January 10, 2013

The cohort profile of the READI study published

The Resilience for Eating and Activity Despite Inequality (READI) cohort was established by the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition research (C-PAN) at Deakin University, led by Prof. Kylie Ball, to address the following two key aims: to investigate the pathways (personal, social and structural) by which socio-economic disadvantage influences lifestyle choices associated with obesity risk (physical inactivity, poor dietary choices) and to explore mechanisms underlying 'resilience' to obesity risk in socio-economically disadvantaged women and children. A paper describing this innovative cohort study was just published as a cohort profile in the International Journal of Epidemiology. A total of 4349 women aged 18-46 years and 685 children aged 5-12 years were recruited from 80 socio-economically disadvantaged urban and rural neighbourhoods of Victoria, Australia, and provided baseline (T1: 2007-08) measures of adiposity, physical activity, sedentary and dietary behaviours; socio-economic and demographic factors; and psychological, social and perceived environmental factors that might impact on obesity risk. Audits of the 80 neighbourhoods were undertaken at baseline to provide objective neighbourhood environmental data. Three-year follow-up data (2010-11) have recently been collected from 1912 women and 382 children.