BACKGROUND
Obesity has become a health problem worldwide, determined by multiple and complex factors, and face to this challenge, governments have played central role in combating its rise. Considering this fact, public policies are introduced or enacted for the benefit of whole populations, taking into account the prospective of multiverse social stakeholders based on solid scientific fundamentals. In an eventual evaluation of a proposed or enforced public policy it can be relevant to explicit the scientific roots of its directives.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to examine obesity-related policies in all US states and District of Columbia, in order to understand their scientific basis.
METHODS
We analyzed the public policies, as implemented in the United States, in the time window when this health-related trend was a major governmental concern. In total, 1,592 policies related to obesity were selected and analyzed through text mining technique.
RESULTS
The multidisciplinary area was predominant in the documents analyzed (33.5%), followed by Health Sciences (28.5%), Social Sciences (20.7%), Life Sciences (15.1%) and Physical Sciences (2.2%). Besides, throughout the country most policies were community oriented and many of them were related to school and family environments, early care and education, hospitals and workplaces.
CONCLUSIONS
The content of public policies analyzed have elements of science with predominance of multidisciplinary area. This results provide evidence of how science and public policy are interrelated. In the same time, it can drive government decisions related to investments on science.