Notes From the Field: Creating a Typology of Childhood Obesity Intervention Strategies

Classification systems can be useful for evaluating and communicating the impact of interventions. We describe how a typology was created to inform the development of a community intervention dose index (CIDI) intended to measure the strength of impacts attributed to multiple childhood obesity intervention strategies implemented in a large, diverse urban jurisdiction in the United States during 2000-2016. The categorization system was constructed via a three-stage process: (Stage 1) identify relevant constructs for categorizing intervention strategies; (Stage 2) review peer-reviewed literature and program requests for proposals to identify and integrate common attributes of intervention strategies based on Stage 1 constructs; and (Stage 3) vet the results from prior stages to develop a final version of the typology, slated for research application and for use in program improvement. The final system grouped strategies into four macrolevel and five microlevel categories. Macrolevel strategies included government/public institutional policies, infrastructure investments, and business practices. Microlevel strategies included group education, counseling, health communication and social marketing, home visitation, and screening and referral. Grouping intervention strategies in a purposeful, classified manner facilitated communications among researchers and practitioners during the gathering and quantifying of intervention data for the CIDI project and may be used to guide scarce public health resource allocation decisions.