American journal of preventive medicine
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Public health situations faced by family physicians and other primary care practitioners, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and more recently H1N1, have resulted in an increased interest to identify the public health competencies relevant to family medicine. At present there is no agreed-on set of public health competencies delineating the knowledge and skills that family physicians should possess to effectively face diverse public health challenges. ⋯ These competencies will also be used to guide the development of a family medicine-public health primer and faculty development sessions to support family medicine faculty facilitating residents to achieve these competencies. Once more fully implemented, an evaluation will be initiated to determine the degree to which these public health competencies are being achieved by family medicine graduates, especially whether they attained the knowledge, skills, and confidence necessary to effectively face diverse public health situations-from common to emergent.
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This is one of six short papers that describe additional innovations to help integrate public health into medical education; these were featured in the "Patients and Populations: Public Health in Medical Education" conference. They represent relatively new endeavors or curricular components that had not been explored in prior publications. Although evaluation data are lacking, it was felt that sharing a description of a longitudinal curriculum focused on the development of basic advocacy skills through practical activities in community assessment and engagement combined with legislative advocacy at the University of New Mexico would be of value to medical educators.
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Integrating public health into medical curricula poses a substantial challenge to educators. However, the needs of trainees and the population requirements of accrediting bodies provide a compelling call to action to improve how tomorrow's medical practitioners are prepared to incorporate public health into their practices. This article provides insights about the nature of the challenges, and it identifies opportunities and practical approaches to integrating public health content into medical school curricula. The paper incorporates authors' opinions with a synthesis of the discussions from a workshop at the 2010 "Patients and Populations: Public Health in Medical Education" conference.
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Aerobic fitness (VO(2)max) is a key component of youth fitness testing. Criterion-referenced (CR) assessments are used in FITNESSGRAM(®) to assess health risk. ⋯ The Quadratic Model and Linear Model 2 provide valid estimates of VO(2)max and compare favorably to previous models. The CR validity evidence for the Quadratic Model and Linear Models developed in this study was slightly better than for the other models examined.
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The dramatic increase in pediatric obesity has renewed interest in accurate methods and screening indexes for identifying at-risk children and youth. Whether age-specific standards are needed is a factor that remains uncertain. ⋯ The results demonstrate a strong relationship between chronic disease risk factors and percent fat in children and youth that varies by age in boys and girls.