American journal of preventive medicine
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Growing evidence documents strong associations between volunteering and favorable health and well-being outcomes. However, epidemiological studies have not evaluated whether changes in volunteering are associated with subsequent health and well-being outcomes. ⋯ With further research, volunteering is an activity that physicians might suggest to their willing and able patients as a way of simultaneously enhancing health and society.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Adding Financial Incentives to Online Group-Based Behavioral Weight Control: An RCT.
Internet-delivered behavioral weight control is promising for expanding the reach and availability of weight management, but online programs produce lower weight losses than typically achieved in person. Financial incentives have been shown to increase weight losses. This study examined whether adding financial incentives for self-monitoring and achieving target weight losses increases weight losses attained in a fully online, group-based behavioral weight management program compared with the same program alone. ⋯ Adding financial incentives to a program delivered fully online increases weight losses compared with the program alone and can achieve weight losses comparable to in-person programs, offering potential for substantial geographic reach.
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Lifestyle-related habits have a strong influence on morbidity and mortality worldwide. This study investigates the association between a multidimensional healthy lifestyle score and all-cause mortality risk, including in the score some less-studied lifestyle-related factors. ⋯ Adherence to a healthy lifestyle score, including some less-studied lifestyle-related factors, was longitudinally associated with a substantially lower mortality rate in a Mediterranean cohort. Comprehensive health promotion should be a public health priority.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
An RCT to Increase Breast and Colorectal Cancer Screening.
Adherence to breast and colorectal cancer screenings reduce mortality from these cancers, yet screening rates remain suboptimal. This 2 × 2 RCT compared 3 theory-based interventions to usual care to simultaneously increase breast and colon cancer screening in women who were nonadherent to both screenings at study entry. ⋯ The tailored intervention simultaneously supporting both breast and colon cancer screenings significantly improved rates of obtaining one of the screenings and increased receipt of both tests.
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Adolescents who identify as a sexual or gender minority are vulnerable to multiple health disparities because of stigma-based peer harassment. Given that sexual and gender minority adolescents may be bullied for several stigmatized identities that may exacerbate health risk, it is important to examine factors that can simultaneously reduce multiple forms of targeted victimization among sexual and gender minority adolescents. This study examines whether variation in health risk across sexual and gender minority adolescents who attend schools with versus without a gay-straight alliance can be explained by lessened bias-based bullying across a broad scope of stigmatized identities and attributes. ⋯ Sexual and gender minority adolescents experience multiple forms of bias-based bullying, which independently heighten health risk, and this study extends previous work on gay-straight alliances to highlight a wider range of potential positive contributions to adolescent health.