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研究和培训卓越中心。我们建议将系统建模方法与空间分析的综合应用相结合。建模将以行为模型和关于食物摄入和体重调节的基础科学为指导，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。我们将开展流行病学研究，利用美国和中国大量儿童及其家庭的现有和新数据，研究宏观社会环境因素对个人行为和生物学的级联影响。在拟建的项目中，我们将流行病学方法和设计与基础科学相结合，探索社会、环境和个人因素如何协同作用于能量平衡相关行为和差异表观遗传编程。我们还将评估一种新的多层次食物获取干预措施，该干预措施可以成为有效和可持续的社区干预措施和政策变化的典范，重点关注城市低收入肥胖高风险人群。通过结合以往有效干预方法的特点，在更广泛的系统框架内，我们希望使理想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，在拟议的试点研究核心中制定和评估环境和政策干预措施。我们将为系统建模和基于gis的调查（研究资源核心和培训核心）建立一个计算车间，这将为推进中心的培训和研究任务提供基础设施。我们将在新兴系统科学理论和方法的不同职业阶段培养新的研究人员队伍。来自领先的美国和国际机构的40多名知名研究人员在高度相关的领域带来了跨学科的专业知识。该中心将建立在一个坚实的研究和培训基地与正在进行的NIH资助的项目直接相关的儿童肥胖和系统分析。

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.