NURS 8310 Week 4 Assignment Epidemiologic Study Designs

NURS 8310 Week 4 Assignment

Epidemiologic Study Designs

Student Name

Walden University

NURS 8310

Professor Name

Date

Epidemiologic Study Designs

Title: The Impact of Excessive Screen Time on Childhood Obesity: Cross-Sectional Study Approach

Introduction

Childhood obesity is an emerging issue in terms of public health, both all around the world, leaving serious consequences on the bodily and mental health of a child. Among the recent lifestyle changes leading to such a trend, there is excess screen time (Ciężki et al., 2024). Children are spending a lot of time on electronic gadgets, especially smartphones, tablets, and televisions, at the peril of physical activity. It is possible that sedentary habits and a doubling of the intake of high-calorie foods through screen-related activities also increase weight (Ciężki et al., 2024). It is essential to know how screen time relates to obesity among children to influence prevention measures. This paper will present a cross-sectional study sample to observe the correlation between screen time and school-aged children obesity. Curiously, it also argues the rationale of applying this design, how the data is going to be collected, the methodological aspects, and ethical precautions.

Population Health Topic and Research Question

The selected topic is the association between excess screen use relates to childhood obesity in school-related children (6 12 years). More than 340 million of the world are children with obesity and have long-term complications such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or poor psychosocial development.

Research Question

Is there an association between excessive screen time and obesity among children aged 6-12 years?

The question is aimed at finding out one possible behavioral risk factor that can lead to obesity in childhood and will lead to defining interventions in the field of public health that should imply changes in their lifestyle to avoid obesity risks at the level of early age.

Appropriate Epidemiologic Study Design

A cross-sectional study design is appropriate for this investigation. Using this design, both exposure (screen time) and outcome (obesity) can be measured at the same time in a specified population. It shows advantages in finding links and making hypotheses concerning the possible cause-and-effect relations. Cross-sectional studies are appropriate in public health surveillance, and thus, they are less costly and do not need a lot of resources as compared to longitudinal studies (Koob et al., 2021). Although they are not effective in determining temporality or causation, they can be used to evaluate prevalence and determine any correlations between the health practices and their consequences in a large population sample.

Data Collection Activities

Activities involving the collection of data are provided. A hybridized approach of school health records and a parent survey completed online will be used to collect the data. The participating schools will give access to the anonymized height and weight records to calculate the body mass index (BMI) of each student. Screen time will be measured by a parental survey assessing the number of hours of time spent with TV, tablet, phone, and computer daily, and physical activity will be assessed by a parental survey (Perez et al., 2023).

It will measure several variables, including dietary habits (survey assessment of the number of events usually eaten per day), sleeping patterns (parents will be asked the average number of hours slept per day), and socioeconomic factors, which will be gauged by parental education degree and the family income (Perez et al., 2023). The surveys shall be user-friendly, mobile-friendly, and include internal logic to limit the lack of or discrepancy in the answers. Reminders will be used to ensure complete participation, and the data will be gathered using a secure and The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant platform (Krzyzanowski & Manson, 2022).

Methodologic Strategies

Children aged between 6-12 years main reference groups will consist of children attending public elementary schools within a certain urban division. Parental consent, in addition to the availability of height and weight records, forms the inclusion criteria. Screen time will be classified (e.g., < 1 hour, 1-2 hours, 3-4 hours, >4 hours/day), and obesity will be defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth chart percentiles (Ryder et al., 2022).

Chi-square tests will be used to find the correlations between the time spent on the screen and obesity, and logistic regression will be conducted when adjusting for the confounders, including the level of physical activity, diet, and socioeconomic status. Sex and age will be analyzed by stratification. The strength is that this method allows obtaining detailed data about a significant sample in a rather short time. Naturally, the study has a weakness in using self-reported time spent on the screen, which can be biased or incomplete (Perez et al., 2023). Moreover, the study is cross-sectional, which is why its factors cannot be considered as causal, and it is also impossible to reveal which factor came first, whether the increased screen time had a cause, which was obesity, or vice versa.

Ethical Considerations

Institutional Review Board (IRB) will be sought before data transformation. Parents or legal guardians will be obliged to give informed consent (Mathews, 2022). The study will be voluntary, and all personal identifiers will be removed to make the study anonymous. Data of children shall be coded, and all the results shall be presented in the aggregate to maintain privacy. The concerned parents will be notified that the study shall be conducted with the sole aim of conducting a study and that the participation or health records of the children will not influence their school positions and grades (Mathews, 2022). All participants will receive resources on healthy use of the screen and physical activity, irrespective of the study results. To reduce the psychological unrest to a bare minimum, the questions concerning the screen time and the lifestyle will be formulated neutrally, and the controversial issues (e.g., food insecurity) will be optional.

Conclusion

The proposed cross-sectional study is an attempt to examine the correlation resulting in obesity and screen time during childhood. The discovered data can contribute to determining the risk factors in the everyday behavior of children and assist in implementing the evidence-based interventions at school and at home. Although this is not a causal design, it remains critical as the initial data regarding spots and guiding subsequent longitudinal studies. Should a good relationship be identified, then the findings could support school and community-based interventions to curb the length of screen time and improve the lifestyles of children.