WHO Ending Childhood Obesity and Iran-Ending Childhood Obesity Programs Based on Urban Health Equity Indicators: A Qualitative Content Analysis

The childhood obesity epidemic is one of the most serious global health challenges, and many relevant policies have been designed and implemented. Regarding health equity policy-making, it is important to adopt proper interventional strategies, including childhood obesity policies. The purpose of this study is to assess compliance with the WHO Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO), and the Iran-Ending Childhood Obesity (IRAN-ECHO) program draft in terms of Urban Health Equity Indicators (UHEIs) in Iran.

This is a descriptive study, using a directed quantitative content analysis approach to analyze the ECHO report and IRAN-ECHO program draft, based on Iranian UHEI. The UHEI consist of 52 indicators in 5 domains. The frequency of each code in the ECHO report and IRAN-ECHO draft was calculated and analyzed.

In total, 148 and 84 phrases or words in ECHO and IRAN-ECHO were encoded with UHEI concepts. The results showed that the physical activity indicator was the most frequent among indicators in both ECHO (n = 48, 32.43%) and IRAN-ECHO (n = 41, 48.80%). Indicators 28 (prevalence of underweight in children under 5, n = 14, 9.45%) and 19 (use of primary care services, n = 21, 25%) were the next most frequent in ECHO and IRAN-ECHO, respectively.

In this study, ECHO and IRAN-ECHO had high compliance with some UHEI, especially indicators placed in domain 3 (social and human development). It indicates that social and human development plays an important role in preventing and controlling childhood obesity.