American journal of preventive medicine
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned a systematic review of public health workforce literature in fall 2010. This paper reviews public health workforce articles published from 1985 to 2010 that support development of a public health workforce research agenda and address four public health workforce research themes: size and composition, effectiveness and health impact, demand, and policy. ⋯ The majority of public health workforce articles are descriptive in nature; few empirical studies about the public health workforce have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Future research should consider use of organizational theories to develop workforce capacity models for public health and development of quantifiable output measures on which to base models that incorporate workforce demand.
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Major depressive disorders are frequently underdiagnosed and undertreated. Collaborative Care models developed from the Chronic Care Model during the past 20 years have improved the quality of depression management in the community, raising intervention cost incrementally above usual care. This paper assesses the economic efficiency of collaborative care for management of depressive disorders by comparing its economic costs and economic benefits to usual care, as informed by a systematic review of the literature. ⋯ The evidence indicates that collaborative care for management of depressive disorders provides good economic value.
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Women who have served in the military are a rapidly growing population. No previous studies have compared directly their health status to that of civilians. ⋯ Compared with civilian women, NG/R women rated their health and access to health care similarly and active duty women rated theirs better on several domains, but veterans consistently reported poorer health.
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Few studies have addressed the potential influence of neighborhood characteristics on adolescent obesity risk, and findings have been inconsistent. ⋯ The mix of neighborhood-level barriers and facilitators of weight-related health behaviors leads to difficulties disentangling their associations with adolescent obesity; however, statistical approaches including factor and latent class analysis may provide useful means for addressing this complexity.
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Physical activity is an essential element in reducing the prevalence of obesity, but much is unknown about the intensity and location of physical activity among youth-this is important because adolescent health behaviors are predictive of behaviors in adults. ⋯ Findings reveal that the journeys between locations are as important as home and school settings in contributing to greater MVPA in adolescent youth. The relative importance of context as a contributor to MVPA varies with urbanicity. Combining actimetry and GPS data provides a precise link between physical activity measurements and contexts of the built environment.