A new study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas could help public health leaders identify the communities most affected by obesity-related chronic diseases, providing a powerful new tool for targeting interventions where they are needed most. Md Roungu Ahmmad, PhD, research faculty at the USF Health College of Nursing, focused on population health and community-level disease burden to introduce the Obesity-Related Chronic Disease index (ORCDi).
ORCDi is a new way to measure how heavily obesity-related illness weighs on a community. Rather than looking at one condition at a time, the index brings nine related conditions together into a single score for each census tract. Using publicly available CDC data from more than 83,000 tracts across the country, Ahmmad and his co-authors show how the index can help reveal where the burden is greatest at the community level. The product is a practical tool that public health leaders can use to decide where to focus their attention and resources.
A milestone built on rigor
For Ahmmad, seeing the work in print is a moment of real pride. He explains that the Lancet journals are known for their demanding peer review, in which reviewers examine every step of a study and every number in it. His team spent a long time working through each stage of that process, making sure the work held up at every step.
The article was a team effort. Ahmmad collaborated with fellow College of Nursing faculty member Xiaoli Zhang, PhD, and Fazlay Faruque, PhD, an external faculty collaborator with expertise in geographic information systems, which helped bring the location-based side of the research to life.
How USF College of Nursing served as a launchpad
Ahmmad credits the college's culture for helping him get here.
"USF Health College of Nursing has provided a supportive and collaborative research environment that has strengthened my ability to conduct innovative, interdisciplinary research," he said. "The college's commitment to research excellence, faculty development, and collaboration has helped me advance my research and contribute to meaningful scientific discoveries."
The publication also speaks to the college's broader research mission.
"This publication reflects USF Health College of Nursing's commitment to advancing high-quality, impactful research that addresses important public health and healthcare needs," Ahmmad said. "It also highlights the college's growing contributions to interdisciplinary research, methodological innovation, and evidence-based healthcare, strengthening its national and international research visibility."
Read the study
The full article, "The obesity-related chronic disease index (ORCDi), a novel composite metric to quantify ORCD burden: an ecological study across U.S. census tracts," is available now in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.
Ahmmad is already looking ahead. He hopes to build on this work to help identify communities in Florida with the greatest need, and to eventually connect the index to individual-level data and community interventions.