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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Life Sciences

Don C. Iverson

Selected Works

Adults

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Is Sleep Duration Associated With Obesity In Older Australian Adults?, Christopher A. Magee, Peter Caputi, Don C. Iverson Jun 2012

Is Sleep Duration Associated With Obesity In Older Australian Adults?, Christopher A. Magee, Peter Caputi, Don C. Iverson

Don C. Iverson

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between sleep duration and obesity in older Australian adults. Method: Self-reported health data were collected through the 45 and Up Study. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to test the relationship between sleep duration and body mass index, controlling for a range of demographic and health-related variables. Results: The sample included 45,325 Australian adults aged 55 to 95 years. The regression models demonstrated that short and long sleep were associated with obesity in 55- to 64-year-olds but not in those aged 65 years and above. Discussion: The present results suggest that the relationships between sleep …


An Investigation Of The Dimensionality Of The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index In Australian Adults, Christopher Magee, Peter Caputi, Donald Iverson, Xu-Feng Huang Jun 2012

An Investigation Of The Dimensionality Of The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index In Australian Adults, Christopher Magee, Peter Caputi, Donald Iverson, Xu-Feng Huang

Don C. Iverson

The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) is widely used to assess subjective sleep quality in clinical and non-clinical settings. Although the PSQI is routinely scored to provide a single sleep quality factor, two recent studies suggest that multiple factor scoring methods could be more appropriate. As a consequence, the present study investigated for the dimensionality and factor structure of the PSQI in 364 Australian adults aged 18 to 59 years. The results demonstrate that two factor and three factor scoring models were favored statistically over the single factor model. These results add to recent findings and suggest that scoring the …


Sleep Duration And Obesity In Middle-Aged Australian Adults, Christopher A. Magee, Donald C. Iverson, Peter Caputi Jun 2012

Sleep Duration And Obesity In Middle-Aged Australian Adults, Christopher A. Magee, Donald C. Iverson, Peter Caputi

Don C. Iverson

The present study examined the association between sleep duration and obesity in 40,834 middle-aged Australian adults. Multinomial logistic regression was used to test the relationship between sleep duration and obesity while controlling for important demographic and health covariates; separate models were tested for males and females. Short sleep (i.e., <7 h a night) was found to be independently associated with obesity in males and females. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an association between short sleep and obesity in Australian adults. Although more research is required, interventions targeting short sleep could aid obesity treatment and prevention.


'Just Don't Eat Chicken': The Challenge Of Engaging Australian Adults In Appropriate Preventive Behaviours For Bird Flu, Sandra Jones, Donald Iverson, Louise Waters Jun 2012

'Just Don't Eat Chicken': The Challenge Of Engaging Australian Adults In Appropriate Preventive Behaviours For Bird Flu, Sandra Jones, Donald Iverson, Louise Waters

Don C. Iverson

Leading medical experts have cautioned about the risk of inappropriate behavioural responses as a result of fear of avian influenza (bird flu) even before a pandemic emerges, and have emphasised the need for appropriate risk communication strategies. There is a paucity of in-depth qualitative research into the general public's understanding of, and reactions to, such potential health crises. Four focus groups were conducted in April 2006 and a further eight focus groups in July 2006, to examine people's knowledge, beliefs and behaviours in relation to avian influenza, with the primary aim being to inform the development of future communication strategies. …