American journal of preventive medicine
-
Although clinical preventive services (CPS)-screening tests, immunizations, health behavior counseling, and preventive medications-can save lives, Americans receive only half of recommended services. This "prevention gap," if closed, could substantially reduce morbidity and mortality. Opportunities to improve delivery of CPS exist in both clinical and community settings, but these activities are rarely coordinated across these settings, resulting in inefficiencies and attenuated benefits. ⋯ Although broad establishment of effective clinical-community integrations will require substantial changes, existing clinical and community models provide an important starting point. The key policies and elements of the framework are often already in place or easily identified. The larger challenge is for stakeholders to recognize how integration serves their mutual interests and how it can be financed and sustained over time.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
C-reactive protein levels in African Americans: a diet and lifestyle randomized community trial.
Chronic inflammation is linked to poor lifestyle behaviors and a variety of chronic diseases that are prevalent among African Americans, especially in the southeastern U.S. ⋯ In overweight/obese, but otherwise "healthy," African-American church members with very high baseline CRP levels, this intervention produced significant reductions in CRP at 3 and 12 months, and in waist-to-hip ratio, which is an important anthropometric predictor of overall risk of inflammation and downstream health effects.
-
Little is known about the factors that drive the association between point-of-sale marketing and behavior, because methods that directly link individual-level use outcomes to real-world point-of-sale exposure are only now beginning to be developed. ⋯ These data shed light on the way mobility patterns drive a dynamic interaction between individuals and the POST environment, demonstrating that quantification of individuals' exposure to POST marketing can be used to identify previously unrecognized patterns of association among individual mobility, the built environment, and behavioral outcomes.
-
Behavioral intervention technologies (BITs) are web-based and mobile interventions intended to support patients and consumers in changing behaviors related to health, mental health, and well-being. BITs are provided to patients and consumers in clinical care settings and commercial marketplaces, frequently with little or no evaluation. Current evaluation methods, including RCTs and implementation studies, can require years to validate an intervention. ⋯ CEEBIT could be used to ensure the effectiveness of BITs provided through deployment platforms in clinical care organizations or BIT marketplaces. The features of CEEBIT are described, including criteria for the determination of inferiority, determination of BIT inclusion, methods of assigning consumers to BITs, definition of outcomes, and evaluation of the usefulness of the system. CEEBIT offers the potential to collapse initial evaluation and postmarketing surveillance, providing ongoing assurance of safety and efficacy to patients and consumers, payers, and policymakers.