Supplementing Obesity-Related Surveillance with Persistent Health Assessment Tools

Introduction In response to the rise in obesity rates and obesity-related healthcare costs over the past several decades, numerous organizations have implemented obesity prevention programs. The current method for evaluating the success of these programs relies largely on annual surveys such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) which provides state-by-state obesity rates. As a result, public health policy makers lack the fine-grained evaluation data needed to make timely decisions about the success of their obesity prevention programs and to allocate resources more efficiently.