Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2022
Quantifying the temporal changes in geographical-level contributions of risk factors to hypertension (2008-2017): Results from national surveys.
South Africa has one of the world's highest proportions of hypertensive individuals, which has become a major public health problem. Understanding the temporal and spatial patterns in hypertension rates is crucial for evaluating the existing prevention and care models, which have not been fully understood in South Africa. The geoadditive models were used to quantify the geographical clustering of hypertension in the Black South African population enrolled in the most recent cross-sectional national surveys (2008-2017). ⋯ The population-level impact of obesity remained high in all provinces, where 33%-to-57% and 47%-to-65% of hypertensives were exclusively associated with obese/overweight men and women respectively. Despite some improvements in certain areas, most of the country is behind the targeted levels set in 2011/2013. Identifying the most relevant risk factors and their sub-geographical-level contributions to hypertension may have significant public health implications for developing and implementing cost-effective prevention programs to raise awareness of healthy diet and lifestyle behaviours.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2022
Differences in overdose deaths by intent: Unintentional & suicide drug poisonings in North Carolina, 2015-2019.
Comprehensive fatal overdose prevention requires an understanding of the fundamental causes and context surrounding drug overdose. Using a social determinants of health (SDOH) framework, this descriptive study examined unintentional and self-inflicted (i.e., suicide) overdose deaths in North Carolina (NC), focusing on specific drug involvement and contextual factors. Unintentional and suicide overdose deaths were identified using 2015-2019 NC death certificate data. ⋯ Overall, overdose deaths tended to occur in under-resourced counties across all SDOH domains, though unintentional overdoses occurred more often among residents of under-resourced counties than suicide overdoses, with differences most pronounced for economic stability-related factors. There are notable distinctions between unintentional and suicide overdose deaths in demographics and drug involvement, though the assessment of SDOH demonstrated that overdose mortality is broadly associated with marginalization across all domains. These findings highlight the value of allocating resources to prevention and intervention approaches that target upstream causes of overdose (e.g., housing first, violence prevention programs).
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2022
Associations of parental physical activity trajectories with offspring's physical activity patterns from childhood to middle adulthood: The Young Finns Study.
We investigated the association of parental physical activity (PA) trajectories with offspring's youth and adult PA. Self-reported PA data were extracted from the Young Finns Study with three follow-ups for parents between 1980 and 1986 and nine follow-ups for their offspring in youth between 1980 and 2011 (aged 9-39 years, n = 2402) and in adulthood in 2018. Accelerometer-derived PA was quantified in 2018-2020 (aged 43-58 years, n = 1134). ⋯ Persistently active and increasingly active offspring in youth accumulated more adult total PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA, step counts, and self-reported PA than persistently low-active ones (all p < 0.036). Parental persistent PA, particularly paternal persistent PA, predicts offspring's PA concurrently and prospectively. Increasing and maintaining PA in youth predicts higher PA levels in midlife.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2022
Racial resentment and support for decriminalization of drug possession in the United States.
Drug criminalization creates significant barriers to prevention and treatment of substance use disorders and racial equity objectives, and removal of criminal penalties for drug possession is increasingly being endorsed by health and justice advocates. We present empirical data estimating the share of U. S. adults who support eliminating criminal penalties for possession of all illicit drugs, and examine factors associated with public support. ⋯ Among white respondents, greater racial resentment was strongly associated with reduced support for drug decriminalization. Support for drug decriminalization varies considerably by beliefs about politics and race, with racial resentment among white Americans potentially comprising a barrier to drug policy reform. Findings can inform communication and advocacy efforts to promote drug policy reform in the United States.