Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Feb 1999
Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialEvaluation of a health and nutrition education program in primary school children of Crete over a three-year period.
No national policy for health education in schools exists to date in Greece. The first attempt to apply a school-based health education intervention program was launched in 1992 on all 4,171 pupils registered in the first grade in two counties of Crete. The 1,510 pupils registered in a third county served as controls. ⋯ The short-term changes observed in the present study are markedly encouraging and indicate great potential for progressive improvement. Continuation and expansion of such a program may prove to be beneficial in initiating long-term changes.
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Preventive medicine · Jan 1999
Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialLong-term effects of aerobic exercise on psychological outcomes.
Although the literature on increased physical fitness and psychological outcomes has grown large, a number of methodological limitations remain unaddressed. The present study was designed to address a number of these limitations while examining the short- and long-term psychological effects following completion of a 12-week aerobic fitness program using bicycle ergometry (and confirmed increases in fitness). ⋯ Overall, results indicate that exercise-induced increases in aerobic fitness have beneficial short-term and long-term effects on psychological outcomes. We postulate that participants in the exercise group did not increase the amount of weekly exercise they performed over the 12-month follow-up period and thus the maintenance of the psychological improvements occurred concurrent with equal or lesser amounts of exercise.
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Preventive medicine · Jan 1999
Insufficiently active Australian college students: perceived personal, social, and environmental influences.
A sustainable pattern of participation in physical activity is important in the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. College students are in transition from an active youth to a more sedentary adult behavior pattern. ⋯ Factors associated with physical activity participation (particularly social support from family and friends) can inform physical activity strategies directed at young adults in the college setting.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 1998
Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialOpening pathways to cancer screening for Vietnamese-American women: lay health workers hold a key.
We describe a controlled trial of a community outreach intervention to promote recognition, receipt, and screening-interval maintenance of clinical breast examinations (CBE), mammograms, and Pap smears among Vietnamese-American women. ⋯ Trained Vietnamese lay health workers significantly increased Vietnamese women's recognition, receipt, and maintenance of breast and cervical cancer screening tests.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 1998
Distributions and trends of serum lipid levels among United States children and adolescents ages 4-19 years: data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Atherosclerosis begins in childhood and progresses into adulthood. The reduction of cardiovascular risk factors, such as elevated serum total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, in childhood may reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in adulthood. Lipid distributions among children and adolescents were examined using the most recent nationally representative data. ⋯ The findings provide a picture of the lipid distribution among U.S. children and adolescents and indicate that, like adults, adolescents have experienced a fall in total cholesterol levels. Total cholesterol levels in U.S. adolescents declined from the late 1960s to the early 1990s by an average of 7 mg/dL. This information is useful for planning programs targeting the prevention of cardiovascular disease beginning with the development of healthy lifestyles in childhood.