Graduation Year

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.P.H.

Degree Granting Department

Public Health

Major Professor

Eve N. Hanna, M.D., M.S.P.H.

Committee Member

Hamisu Salihu, M.D., Ph.D.

Committee Member

Thomas Truncale, D.O., M.P.H.

Keywords

Calorimetry, Exercise, Metabolism, Nutrition, Obesity, Survey

Abstract

Introduction: A growing worldwide pandemic exists today that has large implications for the future of healthcare among the nations. Obesity is a growing disease that has multiple

implications for morbidity and mortality including cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes. The obese and overweight population plagues nearly 46% of the world's population, and likely is

preventable. We wanted to examine what role metabolic testing could play in prevention.

Methods: A cross-sectional study composed of a 52-question Likert-based scale survey was constructed and distributed to healthcare providers. We hypothesized that there would be a

generally accepted interest in establishing routine metabolic rate testing as a standard of care in primary care offices, much like that of colon cancer, breast cancer and hypertension screening.

Seven individual study questions were derived from the primary study question to examine whether differences exist in the chosen demographics of age, occupation, fiscal policy and education. The dataset was first summarized descriptively and then for subgroup analysis the Wilcoxon Rank-Sum and the Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to determine data characteristics.

Results: We broke the primary study question into a dichotomous outcome and when analyzed, showed that 100% of our sampling population was in favor of the implementation of routine

metabolic rate testing. Subgroups were analyzed for differences within the demographic groupings using non-parametric statistical testing. Only six out of twenty-eight evaluations were considered significant which indicated that within that demographic grouping, there was statistical difference between the means of the variables evaluated. Age and occupation were the only demographics analyzed that contributed to some statistical significance in this study.

Conclusion: While we cannot make any definitive conclusions about our subgroup analysis, we can state that overall, there is a general tendency for healthcare providers to express interest in establishing routine metabolic testing. Given the novelty of this concept, further studies will be needed to establish frequency, cost vs benefit analysis, healthcare status changes and

implementation processes.

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