Prediction of Childhood obesity from nationwide health records
The Journal of Pediatrics, 2021
Hagai Rossman, Smadar Shilo, Shiri Barbash-Hazan, Nitzan Shalom Artzi, Eran Hadar, Ran D Balicer, Becca Feldman, Arnon Wiznitzer, Eran Segal
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate body mass index (BMI) acceleration patterns in children and to develop a prediction model targeted to identify children at high risk for obesity prior to the critical time-window in which the largest increase in BMI percentile occurs STUDY DESIGN: We analyzed electronic health records of children from Israel’s largest healthcare provider from 2002 to 2018. Data included demographics, anthropometric measurements, medications, diagnoses, and laboratory tests of children and their families. Obesity was defined as BMI ≥95th percentile for age and sex. To identify the time-window in which the largest annual increases in BMI z-score occurs during early childhood, we first analyzed childhood BMI acceleration patterns among 417,915 adolescents. Next, we devised a model targeted to identify children at high risk prior to this time-window, predicting obesity at 5-6 years of age based on data from the first 2 years of life of 132,262 children.