American journal of preventive medicine
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Few studies have addressed the potential influence of neighborhood characteristics on adolescent obesity risk, and findings have been inconsistent. ⋯ The mix of neighborhood-level barriers and facilitators of weight-related health behaviors leads to difficulties disentangling their associations with adolescent obesity; however, statistical approaches including factor and latent class analysis may provide useful means for addressing this complexity.
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Women who have served in the military are a rapidly growing population. No previous studies have compared directly their health status to that of civilians. ⋯ Compared with civilian women, NG/R women rated their health and access to health care similarly and active duty women rated theirs better on several domains, but veterans consistently reported poorer health.
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Public health leaders are making difficult decisions about how to maximize the effectiveness of public health services with diminishing funds. Quality improvement (QI) interventions seek to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public health programs, services, or organizations. The purpose of this study was to review the literature to describe public health system QI interventions and their impact on public health practices and health outcomes. ⋯ Formally published QI interventions may not be representative of typical, smaller-scale QI activities. Collection and distribution of QI results associated with proven, effective public health interventions and that quantify the benefits of QI practices in public health should be a goal. More research is needed to definitively "connect the dots" between QI efforts, resulting practice improvements, and actual (or predictors of) health outcome improvements. Future studies should examine QI in diverse public health systems.
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Identifying neighborhood environment attributes related to childhood obesity can inform environmental changes for obesity prevention. ⋯ Findings support the proposed GIS-based definitions of obesogenic neighborhoods for children and parents that consider both physical activity and nutrition environment features.
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The focus of the PhenX (Phenotypes and eXposures) Toolkit is to provide researchers whose expertise lies outside a particular area with key measures identified by experts for uniform use in large-scale genetic studies and other extensive epidemiologic efforts going forward. The current paper specifically addresses the PhenX Toolkit research domain of physical activity and physical fitness (PA/PF), which are often associated with health outcomes. A Working Group (WG) of content experts completed a 6-month consensus process in which they identified a set of 14 high-priority, low-burden, and scientifically supported measures. ⋯ Measures from the PA/PF domain and 20 other domains are publicly available and found at the PhenX Toolkit website, www.phenxtoolkit.org. The use of common measures and protocols across large studies enhances the capacity to combine or compare data across studies, benefiting both PA/PF experts and non-experts. Use of these common measures by the research community should increase statistical power and enhance the ability to answer scientific questions that previously might have gone unanswered.