Johns Hopkins Pediatric Obesity Research and Training Center

描述(由申请人提供)：我们建议建立一个基于跨学科系统科学框架和方法的儿童肥胖症研究和培训英才中心。我们建议使用综合应用空间分析的系统建模方法。建模将以行为模型和有关食物摄入量和体重调节的基础科学为指导，以研究儿童肥胖的复杂决定因素以及环境和政策干预的影响。我们将进行流行病学研究，利用来自美国和中国的大量儿童及其家庭的现有数据和新数据，研究宏观社会环境因素对个人层面行为和生物学的级联影响。在建议的项目中，我们将流行病学方法和设计与基础科学相结合，以探索社会、环境和个人因素如何与能量平衡相关的行为与不同的表观遗传编程协同作用。我们还将评估一种新的多级食物获取干预措施，该干预措施可以成为有效和可持续的社区干预和政策变化的典范，重点关注肥胖风险较高的城市低收入人口。通过结合以前有效干预方法的特点，在更广泛的系统框架内，我们希望使可取的、更可持续的食物选择更容易获得、可持续和具有成本效益。此外，我们将鼓励和支持发展研究，以制定和评估拟议的先导研究核心中的环境和政策干预措施。我们将为系统建模和基于地理信息系统的调查(研究资源核心和培训核心)建立一个计算讲习班，为推进中心的培训和研究任务提供基础设施。我们将在新兴的系统科学理论和方法方面培训一批处于不同职业阶段的新的研究人员。来自美国和国际领先机构的40多名资深调查人员将跨学科的专业知识运用到高度相关的领域。该中心将建立一个坚实的研究和培训基础，正在进行的NIH资助的项目直接与儿童肥胖症和系统分析有关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to establish a Center of Excellence on childhood obesity research and training, based on a transdisciplinary systems science framework and methodologies. We propose to use systems modeling approaches with integrated application of spatial analysis. Modeling will be guided by behavioral models and basic science regarding food intake and body weight regulation to study the complex determinants of childhood obesity and the impacts of environmental and policy interventions. We will undertake epidemiological research to study the cascading influences of macrosocial environmental factors on individual-level behaviors and biology using existing and new data from large cohorts of children and their families in the U.S. and in China. In proposed projects we synthesize epidemiological methods and designs with basic sciences to explore how social, environmental and individual factors relate synergistically to energy balance related behaviors to differential epigenetic programming. We will also evaluate a novel multilevel food access intervention that can become a model of effective and sustainable community-based interventions and policy changes, focusing on an urban low-income population at high risk of obesity. By combining features of previous effective intervention approaches, within a broader systems framework, we hope to make desirable, food choices more accessible, sustainable, and cost effective. In addition, we will encourage and support developmental research to develop and evaluate environmental and policy interventions in the proposed Pilot Study Core. We will establish a computational workshop for systems modeling and GIS-based investigation (Research Resource Core and Training Core) that will provide an infrastructure to advance the Center's training and research mission. We will train a new cohort of investigators at different career stages in emerging system-science theories and methods. Over 40 well established investigators from leading US and international institutions bring transdisciplinary expertise to bear in highly relevant areas. The Center will build upon a solid research and training base with ongoing NIH funded projects directly related to childhood obesity and systems analysis.