Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · May 2004
Meta AnalysisA meta-analysis of alcohol consumption and the risk of 15 diseases.
To compare the strength of evidence provided by the epidemiological literature on the association between alcohol consumption and the risk of 14 major alcohol-related neoplasms and non-neoplastic diseases, plus injuries. ⋯ This meta-analysis shows no evidence of a threshold effect for both neoplasms and several non-neoplastic diseases. J-shaped relations were observed only for coronary heart disease.
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Preventive medicine · May 2004
Associations between blood pressure and overweight defined by new standards for body mass index in childhood.
Using data from a longitudinal study of young Australians, we applied recent international standards for overweight and obesity to examine associations with blood pressure (BP) and to determine the prevalence and degree of tracking of overweight and obesity. We also aimed to examine socioeconomic status in relation to these variables. ⋯ Increasing overweight or obesity in young Australians, consistent with international trends, has serious health implications. Overweight and obesity show tracking and are predictors of higher blood pressure, except in early adolescence.
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Preventive medicine · May 2004
Cervical cancer screening among Latinas recently immigrated to the United States.
Little is known about the cancer screening practices of women whose behavior may place them at a high risk for cervical cancer. We explored factors that influence repeated Pap smear screening among recently immigrated Latinas working in bars also called cantinas. ⋯ While risk behaviors did not act as barriers, access to health care measures facilitated repeated Pap smear screening. Psychosocial factors hypothesized to function as antecedents of Pap smear screening appear instead to follow from repeated experience with the examination.
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Preventive medicine · May 2004
Lung cancer rates as an index of tobacco smoke exposures: validation against black male approximate non-lung cancer death rates, 1969-2000.
Researchers use lung cancer death rates (rates) as an index of the cumulative burdens of smoking. That index lacks direct validation and calibration. So this study directly validates and calibrates that index against annual approximately non-lung (all-sites minus lung and stomach) rates from 1969 to 2000 in United States black men, then estimates their cancer death rate smoking-attributable fractions (SAFs). ⋯ Lung cancer death rates were a good index of smoke exposure for predicting approximately non-lung cancer death rates in black men. Smoking may cause most premature cancer deaths in black men.
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Preventive medicine · May 2004
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialSelf-efficacy partially mediates the effect of a school-based physical-activity intervention among adolescent girls.
This study evaluated the effects of the Lifestyle Education for Activity Program (LEAP), a comprehensive school-based intervention emphasizing changes in instruction and school environment, on variables derived from social-cognitive theory (SCT) as mediators of change in physical activity among black and white adolescent girls. ⋯ To our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence from a randomized controlled trial that manipulation of self-efficacy results in increased physical activity among black and white adolescent girls. The results encourage the use of self-efficacy as a targeted, mediator variable in interventions designed to increase physical activity among girls.