Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

College Student Lay Health Information Mediary Behavior: An Examination Of Ehealth Literacy And Unrequested Health Advice, Andrew William Cole

Theses and Dissertations

Lay health information mediary behavior (LHIMB) describes individuals seeking health information to relay to others. The current study examines LHIMB as a relationship between eHealth literacy and unrequested health advice (UHA). 254 undergraduate students completed a survey addressing eHealth literacy levels, general UHA behaviors and specific UHA episodes. Results on general UHA behaviors indicate no significant relationship exists between eHealth literacy and utilizing UHA in health decision-making or frequency of offering UHA. However, self-perceived health status and degree of health worry significantly predict using UHA in health decision-making. Further, as health worry increases, participants appear significantly more likely to receive …

The Role Of Interactive And Critical Health Literacy In Appointment Cancellations: A Quality Assurance Survey, Amanda Nielsen

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: An agency located in the Midwest identified a 30 percent cancellation rate in their federally funded Part C early intervention (EI) program. Parents and caregivers of children with developmental delays tend to access and utilize the health care system and programs aimed at improving developmental outcomes more frequently. These children will likely benefit from caregivers who have ample health literacy to navigate the complicated systems of care. Although the role of functional health literacy (i.e., reading and numeracy skills) on health and developmental outcomes is well documented in the literature, limited research exists on the importance of interactive and …

Assessing The Impact Of An Incentivized Employee Wellness Program On Participation And Weight, Jennifer T. Fink

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF AN INCENTIVIZED EMPLOYEE WELLNESS PROGRAM ON PARTICIPATION AND WEIGHT

by

Jennifer Fink

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2014

Under the Supervision of Dr. Doug Ihrke

Introduction: Employers are increasingly adopting workplace wellness programs designed to improve employee health and decrease employer costs associated with health insurance and job absenteeism. This dissertation examines the outcomes of 6,375 obese health care workers who were offered financial incentives for participating in an employee wellness program (EWP) as they relate to participation and potential change in body mass index (BMI). This study aims to contribute to three distinct literatures, including …

Does Stigma Against Smokers Really Motivate Cessation? A Moderated Mediation Model On The Effect Of Anti-Smoking Campaigns Promoting Smoker-Related Stigma On Cessation Intentions, Jinyoung Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, an increasing number of strong tobacco control legislations (e.g., high cigarette taxes and strict ban on smoking in public places) have passed through Congress to reduce the size of smoking population in the United States. As a part of such national efforts, anti-smoking campaigns have been introduced to curb health problems associated with smoking. Recent anti-smoking campaigns often employ de-normalization strategies that portray smoker(s) as deviant and stigmatized minorit(ies) and smoking as an abnormal and non-mainstream activity in order to better stimulate cessation. As a result of implementing such stigmatization tactics, prevalence of smoking at a …

The Subjective Well-Being Of Youth Heads Of Households In Rural Southern Malawi, Pamela Fruechting

Theses and Dissertations

Youth-headed households in HIV-endemic sub-Saharan Africa face harsh realities of poverty and loss of parental care. Scientific knowledge of these youth is generally limited to socio-economic and psychological indicators of vulnerability while much less is known about youth-centric meanings of well-being. This is the first known study on the subjective well-being of youth heads of households.

The purpose of this exploratory, youth-centric, qualitative study was to identify experiences of subjective well-being, factors for regulating well-being, and meanings of well-being among youth heads of household in the Thyolo and Chiradzulu districts of rural southern Malawi. The theoretical foundation for this study …

Strategic Flexibility In Not-For-Profit Acute Care Hospitals, Donna Fe Jamieson

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY IN NOT-FOR-PROFIT ACUTE CARE HOSPITALS

by

Donna F. M. Jamieson

Despite multiple industry cycles of rapid and complex changes in the last three decades, the body of research in health care services strategy has not addressed the idea of strategic flexibility, that is, when and how should strategy evolve under conditions of environmental turbulence. Strategic flexibility has been defined in the literature as the ability to adapt to rapidly changing conditions by leveraging internal resources and competencies to effectively compete. With increasing scope of responsibility in both nursing and non-nursing functional areas, nurse executives have not only …

Effects Of Traffic And Air Pollution On Risk Of Preterm Birth And Low Birth Weight Outcomes In Milwaukee County, 2005-2010, Deborah Lynn Pasha James

Theses and Dissertations

Between 2005 and 2010, infants born to non-Hispanic black mothers experienced a 3-fold elevated risk of infant mortality compared to those born to white and Hispanic mothers. Preterm birth (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) are strong predictors of infant mortality. To our knowledge, this is the first study of Wisconsin births to evaluate the effect of social and environmental factors on risk of PTB and LBW. We hypothesize that the observed racial inequalities in PTB and LBW are related to traffic density and air pollution. The Milwaukee INFANTS Study used 2005-2010 electronic birth record data (N = 85,045) geocoded …

Citefinder: A System To Find And Rank Medical Citations, Seyed Soheil Moosavinasab

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents CiteFinder, a system to find relevant citations for clinicians' written content. Inclusion of citations for clinical information content makes the content more reliable through the provision of scientific articles as references, and enables clinicians to easily update their written content using new information. The proposed approach splits the content into sentences, identifies the sentences that need to be supported with citations by applying classification algorithms, and uses information retrieval and ranking techniques to extract and rank relevant citations from MEDLINE for any given sentence. Additionally, this system extracts snippets from the retrieved articles. We assessed our approach …

Factors Associated With College Students' Excessive Alcohol Consumption Within The Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: An Epidemiological Analysis, Beom-Young Cho

Theses and Dissertations

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to estimate the relative influence of predictor variables on excessive alcohol consumption among college students for providing effective prevention and intervention. Also, this study suggests the roles of occupational therapy in Health promotion and Well-being. METHOD: The data from 7,166 college students (3,176 males, 3,990 females) aged between 18 - 25 years from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted by the US Department of Health and Human Services was used. Two criterion variables, binge drinking and heavy drinking, were used as indicators of excessive alcohol consumption. There were …

Health Information Behavior And Paternal Involvement Of Low-Income Expectant And Recent Fathers, Emily M. Cramer

Theses and Dissertations

Given the importance of paternal involvement in maternal and child health, the current transdisciplinary investigation is a step towards unraveling factors related to paternal involvement by taking a closer look at low-income expectant and recent (E/R) fathers' health information behavior. The study evaluates the belief that information acquisition associates with fathers' involvement in the pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. A total of 186 E/R fathers (68 low-income) completed a survey about their information needs, sources of information, and information-seeking behavior. A strong association between E/R fathers' health information-seeking behavior and paternal involvement was observed, and the relationship persisted among low-income groups. …