Prev Chronic Dis
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Reaching staff, parents, and community partners to prevent childhood obesity in Head Start, 2008.
Lowering the prevalence of childhood obesity requires a multilevel approach that targets the home, school, and community. Head Start, the largest federally funded early childhood education program in the United States, reaches nearly 1 million low-income children, and it provides an ideal opportunity for implementing such an approach. Our objective was to describe obesity prevention activities in Head Start that are directed at staff, parents, and community partners. ⋯ Head Start programs reported using a multilevel approach to childhood obesity prevention that included staff, parents, and community partners. More information is needed about the content and effectiveness of these efforts.
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Telephone quitlines are an effective way to provide evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment services at the population level. Information about what services quitlines offer and how those services are used may improve their reach to the smoking population. ⋯ Quitlines have the potential to serve a large percentage of smokers. Between 2005 and 2006, gains in the number, reach, and per capita funding for quitline services in the United States were seen. Although this represents progress, further research and investment to optimize quitline service delivery and reach are required for quitlines to fulfill their potential of improving the health of the American population.
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Most studies that describe hospice use among cancer patients use the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database, which has known limitations. We used vital records data to describe patterns of hospice use among cancer decedents in Alabama. ⋯ Alabamians use hospice at lower rates than observed elsewhere. Barriers to hospice care in Alabama must be identified and addressed.
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Epidemiologic studies usually use database diagnoses or patient self-report to identify disease cohorts, but no previous research has examined the extent to which self-report of chronic disease agrees with database diagnoses in a Veterans Affairs (VA) health care setting. ⋯ Diagnoses identified from databases agree with self-report for diabetes but not COPD/asthma, depression, or heart disease in a VA health care setting.