ABSTRACT
Over the past 20 years, the socioecological model (SEM) [1] has emerged as the dominant and guiding framework for the development, implementation, and evaluation of community-based health promotion efforts. The SEM identifies the independent and interactive effects of factors at multiple levels that influence individual and population health. These factors range from individual-level factors (e.g., knowledge and behavior), interpersonal factors (e.g., family, peers), organizational factors (e.g., schools and work sites), environmental factors (e.g., built environment and social environment), and policy factors (e.g., health policy) [2]. The SEM has also been adapted to study several chronic diseases (e.g., cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity) [3-5], several health behaviors (e.g., cancer screening, physical activity, and nutrition) [6-9], and for use in specific population subgroups such as Latinos [10]. The wide use of the SEM has helped to identify opportunities to revert the current obesogenic environments and to identify areas where greater efforts are needed to create healthier communities [5].
