Place matters: Mitigating obesity with the person-in-environment approach

O'Dare Wilson, Kellie (author)

Social Work in Health Care

0098-1389

55

3

214

230

2016

10.1080/00981389.2015.1107017

Research demonstrates that environmental and community-level variables contribute to obesity. Many of these variables are outside of personal volitional control, such as the characteristics of the places in which people live. Social work’s unique person-in-environment (PIE) approach is an ideal perspective from which to address obesity. This study employs the PIE perspective to examine sprawl, one environmental-level factor. We employed secondary data analysis to examine the effect of sprawl on obesity while controlling for covariates. Region of residence and sprawl significantly predicted obesity, net of covariates. Given that obesity varies among communities, social workers can respond with PIE-oriented solutions.

Obesity
obesity and place
overweight
sprawl
person-in-environment

uwf:22784