Community-Based Participatory Obesity Prevention Interventions in Rural Communities: A Scoping Review

Child obesity is a worldwide public health concern. In America, children from rural areas have greater odds of obesity in comparison to those from urban areas. Community-engaged research is important for all communities, particularly under-represented communities. This paper reports the results of a scoping review investigating community-engaged research in obesity prevention programs tested with school-aged children in rural America. A literature search of Medline Ovid was conducted to identify interventions reporting the results of obesity prevention interventions that promoted a healthy diet or physical activity (PA) behaviors to school-age children in rural communities of the United States (US). After title and abstract review, potentially relevant citations were further examined by assessing the full text. Each stage of review was conducted by two independent reviewers. Twelve studies met the inclusionary criteria and are included in this review. Most of the studies focused on elementary school participants (n = 7) and improving both diet and PA (n = 9). Out of the twelve studies, only five included the target audience in intervention development or implementation. The most popular type of community engagement was community participation (n = 4). This review revealed that community-engaged research is under-utilized in obesity prevention interventions tested with school-aged children in rural US communities.