American journal of preventive medicine
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Mobile health helps providers offer accessible, affordable, tailored behavior change interventions. However, research assessing mobile health interventions may feature methodologic shortcomings and poor reporting. This review aims to summarize the characteristics, methods, and intervention reporting of RCTs evaluating mobile health behavior change interventions. ⋯ Reports of RCTs assessing mobile health behavior change interventions lack information that would be useful for providers, including reporting of long-term intervention impact on patient-important primary outcomes and information needed for intervention replicability.
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This study used causal mediation analysis to assess the life-course associations of a favorable childhood psychosocial environment with left ventricular mass and diastolic function in adulthood and the extent to which adult health behaviors mediate these associations. ⋯ A favorable childhood environment is associated with more optimal cardiac structure and function in adulthood. After accounting for socioeconomic positions, adult health behaviors explain little of the associations.
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Obesity affects 15.7% of U.S. preschoolers, with higher rates among low-income and Spanish-speaking populations. Food, physical activity, and sleep parenting practices, referred to collectively as obesity-related parenting practices, are linked with children's risk of obesity and are a common target in family-based obesity interventions. Yet, there is no brief, validated measure of obesity-related parenting practices that is appropriate for use in intervention studies and for diverse audiences. This study tests the factorial validity of a brief measure of obesity-related parenting and measurement invariance of the English and Spanish versions of the scale, as well as among mothers and fathers. ⋯ This brief obesity-parenting scale demonstrates adequate factorial validity in English and Spanish and among mothers and fathers. This measure has been integrated into an intervention, and future work will test sensitivity to change.
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Studies reporting on the cost-effectiveness of cancer screening usually account for quality of life losses and healthcare costs owing to cancer but do not account for future costs and quality of life losses related to competing risks. This study aims to demonstrate the impact of medical costs and quality of life losses of other diseases in the life years gained on the cost-effectiveness of U.S. cancer screening. ⋯ Practical difficulties in quantifying quality of life losses and healthcare expenditures owing to competing risks in life years gained can be overcome. Their inclusion can have a substantial impact on the cost-effectiveness of cancer screening programs.
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To counter the high prevalence of flavored tobacco use among youth, many U.S. localities have passed policies that restrict youth access to these products. This study aims to evaluate the short-term impact of a flavored tobacco restriction policy on youth access to, and use of, flavored tobacco products in a Massachusetts community. ⋯ Policies that restrict the sale of flavored tobacco have the potential to curb youth tobacco use in as few as 6 months.