Child Growth: Improving the Assessment and Communication

Elmrayed, Seham Abdulmajed A

Child Growth: Improving the Assessment and Communication

dc.contributor.advisor	Fenton, Tanis
dc.contributor.author	Elmrayed, Seham Abdulmajed A
dc.contributor.committeemember	Abhay Lodha
dc.contributor.committeemember	Dai, Susan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Manoj, Kumar
dc.date.accessioned	2024-01-19T15:39:52Z
dc.date.available	2024-01-19T15:39:52Z
dc.date.issued	2024-01-15
dc.description.abstract	Childhood obesity is a major public health concern worldwide. Accurate assessment of child weight and effective communication of weight information to parents are key steps to promote optimal growth in children and prevent obesity. However, there are questions about which growth tools are the most appropriate to assess children’s weights in early years, a critical time for the diagnosis of obesity risk to facilitate timely interventions. Additionally, most parents do not understand growth information and often normalize their children’s unhealthy weights. While guidance recommends using growth charts for educating parents, there are gaps in the literature concerning the knowledge and perceptions of healthcare providers, as chart users, on growth charts as tools to assess and communicate child growth information. These gaps are addressed in this dissertation. The overarching aim of this dissertation is to explore the accuracy of clinical assessment and communication of child weight assessments, applying concepts and methodologies from public health, knowledge translation and epidemiology. In the first manuscript, we updated the evidence on the practice of age correction to promote the accurate assessment of preterm growth. Using longitudinal data for children born extremely and very preterm in Canada, our findings support the practice of age correction for all growth measures including weight, length/height and head circumference through 3 years corrected age. The second manuscript is an observational study assessing weight classifications in infancy and obesity prediction according to weight-for-length and body mass index, using Canadian public health data. The analyses demonstrated agreement between weight-for-length and body-mass-index weight classifications in infancy, warranting an assessment of the potential benefits of using body-mass-index to monitor infants’ weights. The third manuscript is an observational cross-sectional study exploring the knowledge and perceptions of Canadian healthcare providers of growth charts as tools to assess and communicate child growth. Data were gathered via a survey distributed to national medical and allied health organizations. Findings indicated substantial inconsistencies and variability in clinical practices of child weight assessments, including in the choice of the appropriate chart to use according to age, and the cut-offs to identify high and low weights. The results of the three manuscripts contribute to the field of child weight assessment, which are integrated into clinical recommendations and directions for future research.
dc.identifier.citation	Elmrayed, S. A. A. (2024). Child growth: improving the assessment and communication (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/118007
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Childhood obesity
dc.subject	Weight assessments
dc.subject	Growth charts
dc.subject	Preterm birth
dc.subject	Age correction
dc.subject	Body mass index
dc.subject	Child growth
dc.subject.classification	Epidemiology
dc.title	Child Growth: Improving the Assessment and Communication
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Medicine – Community Health Sciences
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I require a thesis withhold – I need to delay the release of my thesis due to a patent application, and other reasons outlined in the link above. I have/will need to submit a thesis withhold application.