Childhood Obesity Monitoring: findings from the 2006 exercise for the West Midlands

1. Childhood Obesity Monitoring: findings from the 2006 exercise for the West Midlands Dr Alison TealePublic Health Specialist Trainee

2. Overview • The national monitoring programme • West Midlands findings- completeness of data • - rates of obesity and overweight • Issues and further information

3. Background • Public Service Agreement target“to halt the year on year rise in obesity among children aged under 11 by 2010”. • PSA sets a challenging target for PCTs (and Local Authorities)

4. The monitoring programme • National Childhood Obesity Monitoring launched by DH in 2006 (now called National Child Measurement Programme) • Children aged 4/5 and 10/11 included • Organised by PCTs, takes place in schools • First year = steep learning curve! • PHOs involved in analysis of national database

5. The monitoring process • Opt-outs: whole schools, parents, children • Monitoring undertaken by School Nurses, Health Visitors, Nursery Nurses • Not a screening programme – but parents can request feedback for their child (now within one month only) • Secure database held nationally • PCT can get detailed data for their own area, less detailed for other areas

6. W Mids completeness • Completeness = % of children who could have been measured, that were • Some doubts over accuracy of the denominators • Reception year 16 - 88% • Year 6 4 – 90% • Various reasons for low completeness

7. W Mids obesity rates • Reception Year (38,655 measured)Average = 10.1% (3919 children) • Year 6 (23,578 measured) Average = 17.6% (4140 children) • Variation in completeness means that rates for individual PCTs must be viewed with caution

8. 2006/07 data collection • Data collection for 06/07 now complete • New DH Guidance – changes from first year of monitoring • Improvements to IT support, clearer definitions and more supporting information • Extra data items including ethnicity • Changes to central database

9. What about feedback for schools? • Schools central to the process • Obesity rates for individual schools are subject to wide variation due to small numbers involved and should be used with extreme caution • S Staffs decided not to feedback individual schools rates to avoid negative publicity and anxiety if a school has a high rate • Used Control Chart techniques instead to identify outliers and explored these further; results fed into local action planning process

10. The future • Ongoing process, improvements to data collection process being made • Monitoring provides a highly valuable resource for public health • Childhood obesity presents a complex challenge in changing behaviour, and schools cannot tackle this issue alone • Monitoring process provides an opportunity to engage more closely with schools, parents and children, and other partners in tackling obesity

11. Finally • Monitoring process is a very considerable undertaking • Thanks to all those children, parents, school staff and PCT staff who are involved!