Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2021
Do predictors of adherence to pandemic guidelines change over time? A panel study of 22,000 UK adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the absence of a vaccine, governments have focused on behaviour change (e.g. social distancing and enhanced hygiene procedures) to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing research on the predictors of compliance with pandemic measures has often produced discrepant results. One explanation for this may be that the determinants of compliance are context specific. ⋯ Low compliance was strongly related to younger age and also to risk attitudes, empathic concern, and high income, among other factors. The size of some of these associations was larger in later months when less stringent lockdown and household mixing measures were in place. The results showed that compliance was lower and fell faster across some groups, suggesting the importance that public health communications adopt a plurality of messages to maximize broad adherence.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2021
Impact of achievement and change in achievement of lifestyle recommendations in middle-age on risk of the most common potentially preventable cancers.
This study aimed to assess the association between achievement, and within-person change in achievement, of lifestyle recommendations in middle-age and incidence of the most common potentially preventable cancers. We used data from 44,572 participants from the Swedish Västerbotten Intervention Programme who had attended at least two health checks 9-11 years apart. We assessed the association between the mean number of healthy lifestyle recommendations achieved (lifestyle score), and change in lifestyle score between the health checks, and risk of one or more of the eight most common potentially preventable cancers using Cox regression. ⋯ These findings support the inclusion of lifestyle recommendations in cancer prevention guidelines. They further suggest that interventions to change health behaviours in middle-age may reduce risk of the most common preventable cancers in men, but this association was not observed in women. Strategies to encourage healthy lifestyles earlier in the life course may be more effective.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2021
A systematic review of interventions to improve breast cancer screening health behaviours.
Whilst breast cancer screening has been implemented in many countries, uptake is often suboptimal. Consequently, several interventions targeting non-attendance behaviour have been developed. This systematic review aims to appraise the successes of interventions, identifying and comparing the specific techniques they use to modify health behaviours. ⋯ Commonly used approaches which focus upon explaining the consequences of not attending mammograms were often ineffective. Problem solving, however, has shown promise. These techniques should be investigated further, as should emerging technologies which can enable interventions to be feasibly translated at a population-level.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2021
Association of change in the school travel mode with changes in different physical activity intensities and sedentary time: A International Children's Accelerometry Database Study.
Our aim was to assess the association between changes in active travel to school and changes in different intensities of physical activity (i.e. moderate - MPA and vigorous - VPA) and time spent sedentary (SED) among adolescents and assess the moderating effect of children's sex, age and weight status. Data from six cohort studies in the International Children's Accelerometry Database were used (4108 adolescents aged 10-13y at baseline, with 1.9±0.7y of follow-up). Participants self-reported travel mode to school at baseline and follow-up. ⋯ There were no associations with SED. An interaction was observed, age group moderated the association with change in VPA: among 12-13y-olds a greater increase in VPA was observed for the passive/active group compared to active/active. Promoting active travel to school can be a strategy to attenuate the decline in physical activity through adolescence.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2021
Factors associated with participation in the organized cervical cancer screening program in the greater Paris area (France): An analysis among more than 200,000 women.
We aimed to identify the contextual factors associated with participation in the organized Cervical Cancer Screening (CCS) pilot program, which includes specific interventions to reach vulnerable women, in the Greater Paris region. Study population consisted of 231,712 women aged 25-65 years, who were not up to date to their smear test and had been invited to take part in the program from July 2014 to September 2017. Using a multilevel mixed logistic regression with random effects, we investigated the effect of grassroots interventions targeting vulnerable women, healthcare provider accessibility, social environment and municipal policy-related factors. ⋯ In both populations, there were no significant trends in participation with regards to the type of grassroots interventions, level of accessibility of healthcare services or municipal commitment to healthcare. Among women invited previously and aged above 35 increased participation was seen in neighborhoods with low proportion of single women or in less deprived neighborhoods. Our results identified groups of women who participated less in the organized CCS program and suggested that additional interventions targeting the barriers faced by vulnerable women, especially those aged 35-45 years old, are needed.