Evaluating The Research Process Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Evaluating The Research Process - Essay Example Thomson Medical carried out a research on childhood obesity focused with the research questions such as; what are the costs of obesity, what are the appropriate treatment patterns, what are the disparities in care and prevalent medical conditions. This study considered the following ethical issues when collecting data; consent, privacy and confidentiality. The facilitator had to obtain consent from parents and guardians by promising them that the names of the children affected was not to be revealed. Thus, the question of privacy and confidentiality was addressed from the parental consent. Obesity is considered as an epidemic in America. A research quoted in the literature review indicates that 16% of U.S children could be obese (Christofell, 2012). Further the study shows that the health problem is more prevalent to children covered by public health insurance for instance Medicaid as compared to those covered by private insurances. According to the findings, children covered by publ ic health insurance are about six times like to be treated with obesity as compared to those covered by private insurance. ... ational cost of childhood obesity is estimated to be approximately $11 billion for children with private insurance and $3 billion for those in Medicaid. In addition children covered by Medicaid are six times more likely to be diagnosed with obesity than those covered by private insurance. Obesity was also found to be a major cause of absents in schools where it was found that obese children are absent for more days than the average weight children. Among the studied population, obese children missed school for 12.2 days on average per year while those of average weight missed for an average of 10 days (Christofell, 2012). Such kind of absenteeism disrupts children learning, causes parents to miss work has accost effect to the school systems. Children diagnosed with obesity are 2 to 3 more likely to be hospitalized and children who receive public insurance are less likely to visit the doctor but they are more likely visit the hospital more often as compared to children with private in surance (Wilkins, 2011). Children treated for obesity is more likely to get a mental health disorders or joint and bone disorders than non-obese children. Treatment for these conditions can contribute to the higher medical costs than average weight children. Other conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease are likely to emerge as these children age, causing medical costs associated with obesity to continue rising. The methodology used involved an analysis examination of the subset of children treated for obesity as recorded in the national database for children with private health insurance and database of children with public insurance. The research focused on children aged 17 years and under who had received diagnosis of obesity as small fraction of the obese children because most