American journal of preventive medicine
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The high prevalence of overweight and obesity threatens the health and safety of the fire service. Healthcare professionals may play an important role in helping firefighters achieve a healthy weight by providing weight loss counseling to at-risk firefighters. This study characterizes the impact of healthcare professional weight loss advice on firefighter weight perceptions and weight loss behaviors among overweight and obese male firefighters. ⋯ Healthcare professional weight loss advice appears to increase the accuracy of firefighter weight perceptions, promote weight loss attempts, and may encourage dieting and physical activity behaviors among overweight firefighters. Healthcare providers should acknowledge their ability to influence the health behaviors of overweight and obese patients and make efforts to increase the quality and frequency of weight loss recommendations for all firefighters.
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The purpose of this review is to summarize the empirical research on neighborhood-level factors and dating violence among adolescents and emerging adults to guide future research and practice. ⋯ Existing research suggests that neighborhood factors may be associated with dating violence. However, there is a limited body of research on the neighborhood context of dating violence, and more rigorous research is needed.
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Pragmatic Clinical Trial
Perspectives in Implementing a Pragmatic Pediatric Primary Care-Based Intervention Trial.
The 2013 U. S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concluded that behavioral interventions are effective in reducing initiation of smoking in youth, recommending primary care clinicians provide education or brief counseling to prevent initiation, and that there are promising trends toward behavioral interventions improving cessation in this population. ⋯ Such an assessment assists researchers by providing a framework to guide decisions regarding study design and implementation. We then share a few principles and lessons learned in developing and implementing the primary care-based intervention trial, focusing on study setting selection, engaging providers who will be delivering the intervention and the target population who will be receiving it in designing the trial and interventions to be tested, and the need to carefully plan recruitment and retention procedures. The hope is to increase the number of well-designed studies that can be included in the evidence reviews to guide future USPSTF recommendation statements.
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Although there is general agreement among various guidelines on benefits of routine screening mammography, the age of screening initiation and the optimal frequency of the test remain controversial. In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended against routine breast cancer screening in women aged younger than 50 years. In this study, screening mammography guideline adherence among U.S. women is explored by examining patterns in rates of mammography age of initiation and utilization in years prior to and following the 2009 USPSTF guideline implementation. ⋯ These data support no perceptible change in U.S. women's patterns of screening mammography age at initiation within 3 years of the USPSTF guideline revision. Whether this finding reflects a delayed effect of guideline revision in population trends or rather health provider practice and patient preference for more frequent screening is unclear and requires further investigation.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Randomized Trial of a Fitbit-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Women.
Direct-to-consumer mHealth devices are a potential asset to behavioral research but rarely tested as intervention tools. This trial examined the accelerometer-based Fitbit tracker and website as a low-touch physical activity intervention. The purpose of this study is to evaluate, within an RCT, the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of integrating the Fitbit tracker and website into a physical activity intervention for postmenopausal women. ⋯ The Fitbit was well accepted in this sample of women and associated with increased physical activity at 16 weeks. Leveraging direct-to-consumer mHealth technologies aligned with behavior change theories can strengthen physical activity interventions.