Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Health Policy & Management News, Georgia Southern University

Health Policy & Management Department News (2011-2018)

• Georgia Southern University’s Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health receives grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Sexuality Education, Eva Goldfarb, Norman A. Constantine

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Sexuality education comprises the lifelong intentional processes by which people learn about themselves and others as sexual, gendered beings from biological, psychological, and sociocultural perspectives. It takes place through a potentially wide range of programs and activities in schools, community settings, religious centers, as well as informally within families, among peers, and through electronic and other media. Sexuality education for adolescents occurs in the context of the biological, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental progressions and issues of adolescence. Formal sexuality education falls into two main categories: behavior change approaches, which are represented by abstinence-only and abstinence-plus models, and healthy sexual development …

Health & Wellness In The Business Context, Michael T. Childress

Issue Brief on Topics Affecting Kentucky’s Economy

No abstract provided.

Elderly Patients And Their Health In Pakistan: Current Status, Issues, Challenges And Opportunities, Waris Qidwai, Tabinda Ashfaq

Department of Family Medicine

No abstract provided.

My Journey To Develop An Innovative Approach To Unplanned Pregnancy, Gina Dillon Podolsky

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper is my personal journey in developing the non-profit Pennies for Pause that addresses the issue of unplanned pregnancy in the 18-29 populations through the use of incentives, social media, long-acting reversible contraception and the development of critical and creative thinking skills. The paper begins with an insight into my family, how my own thinking skills developed informally throughout my life, and how my personal experiences lead to the development of the 501 (c)(3) organization Pennies for Pause. It also provides insight into my casual observations that I used to create theories, which I then researched, S.C.A.M.P.E.R.E.D, and then …

A Review Focused On The Psychological Effectiveness Of Tai Chi On Different Populations, Long Zhang, Thomas Lowder, Jian Liu

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

As a popular exercise form, Tai Chi (TC) has been investigated to determine its contributions to an active and healthy lifestyle. There are an increasing number of researchers who focus on exploring the potential physiological and psychological benefits of TC but only a few systematic reviews of these benefits to a variety of populations. The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively evaluate the reported psychological benefits associated with practicing TC. Although many investigators have reported possible psychological benefits of TC for children, young adults, older healthy adults, and for a variety of patient populations, many of the reports suffer …

Reassessing The Architecture Of The Health Beliefs Models In Low-Income Diverse Families, Krista B. Highland

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Health beliefs contribute to health outcomes. These health beliefs extend to include health beliefs parents have regarding their children’s health. However, the role of parental health beliefs remains unexplored among a low-income population. This study aims to assess these beliefs and the effects they have on child health. Furthermore, this study aims to delineate potential belief differences between socioecological-level groups (e.g. population density, Latino identification, and insurance coverage). The long-term goal is to understand the relationships among various personal health beliefs and parental health beliefs, psychosocial factors, community factors, cultural factors, organizational factors, and healthcare perceptions among this at-risk population. …

8th Annual Symposium Of The School Of Science, Engineering And Health, Messiah College

School of Science, Engineering & Health (SEH) Symposium

This symposium continues a strong tradition of annual events designed to showcase student and faculty innovation, creativity and productivity. However, it is the first that we are holding as a newly re-organized School of Science, Engineering and Health.

Understanding Mesosystemic Influences On Reported Health Among Rural Low-Income Women: A Structural Equation Analysis, Tiffany Wigington

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While ensuring access to health insurance and health care services is important, emerging research indicates that individual health and well-being result from a complex array of environmental, social, and psychological factors. The delineation of how factors of health and well-being unfold and impact rural low-income women is particularly salient for social workers who provide services to rural residents and who work within a rural context. Utilizing components from the ecological systems perspective, this study explored how the factors associated with health risk influenced reported health and mesosystemic processes among rural low-income women. This sample (n=304) for this study was drawn …

Food For Thought: Eathing For The Baby & You, Cassandra Fernandes Faria

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Fit Into College: A Program To Improve Physical Activity And Dietary Intake Lifestyles Among College Students, Robert V. Topp, Jean S. Edward, S. Lee Ridner, Dean E. Jacks, Karen Newton, Patricia Keiffner, Deborah Woodall, Kathleen P. Conte

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a 10-week program could improve physical activity, physical fitness, body weight, dietary intake, and perceptions of exercise and diet among college 30 healthy college freshmen. Outcomes were measured at baseline, and following the 10-week program. The weekly sessions incorporated constructs of the Transtheoretical Model of Health Behavior Change and were administered by fitness interns who were junior or senior college students enrolled in health-related majors. The participants presented with low physical activity, physical fitness, and poor dietary intake, and 50% were overweight/obese (BMI > 25). Participants demonstrated gains in their physical fitness …

Providing Better Care At Lower Cost: Building Maine's Health Data Infrastructure To Support Financing And Delivery System Reform, Andrew F. Coburn Phd

Health System Reform

Maine needs a robust and functional health data infrastructure to support efforts by health care providers and purchasers to improve quality, address Maine’s health care cost problems, and improve the health of individuals and populations through payment and delivery system reform. Although Maine has been a leader in building and using health data systems such as the hospital discharge data set and the all-payer claims database, new performance-based financing and delivery system arrangements are highlighting shortcomings in these systems and the need for a renewed vision of Maine’s future health data infrastructure.

The Health Data Workgroup was created by The …

Psychosocial Aspects Of Physical Activity And Fitness In Special-Population, Minority Middle School Children, Jeffrey J. Martin, Nate Mccaughtry, Anne S. Murphy, Sara Flory, Kimberlydawn Wisdom

Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies

Special-population research predicting physical activity (PA) and fitness with minority middle school children from at-risk environments is rare. Hence, the purpose of our investigation was to evaluate the ability of important social cognitive and environment-based measures to predict PA and fitness with children with developmental delay, cognitive, and emotional impairments. Children (N = 89, ages 11-15) completed questionnaires assessing social cognitive and environment-based constructs, self report PA, and completed fitness testing. Correlational results supported some hypotheses. The descriptive and correlational results also indicated commonalities with similar research on non special-population minority middle school children from at-risk environments.

2011 Report Of The Director Of Public Health - Social Inequalities In Health In Montreal. Progess To Date, Dr. Margaret Chan, World Health Organization

Mickey Leland Center Information Portal

In 1998, the Direction de santé publique de Montréal’s first annual report noted a 10-year difference between the average life expectancy of men living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and of those in wealthy areas. Over a decade has gone by since this first portrait of Montrealers’ state of health was published and it is now time to measure the progress we have made. Therefore, the Director’s 2011 report is focused on social inequalities in health.

Are We Consuming Enough Long Chain Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids For Optimal Health?, B J. Meyer

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The health benefits attributed to the consumption of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC n-3PUFA) are enormous but are we consuming enough for optimal health? Cardiovascular disease rates are much lower in countries like Japan compared with the Western world. Western countries’ LC n-3 PUFA intakes are up to 5 fold lower than Japanese intakes. Various professional bodies and government organisations recommend 500mg LCn-3PUFA per day. The actual reported intake of LC n-3 PUFA from Australia and various other countries are compared to these recommended intakes. Not surprisingly, the actual intakes of LCn-3PUFA in Western countries fall short of …

Parallel Processes In Clinical Supervision: Implications For Coaching Menthal Health Practitioners, Trevor P. Crowe, Lindsay G. Oades, Frank P. Deane, Joseph Ciarrochi, Virginia C. Willliams

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Factors Influencing General Practitioner Referral Patterns To Orthopaedic Surgeons In The Australian Health Care Setting: An On-Line Survey, David Loxton, Stephen Barnett, Patricia J. Knight, Andrew D. Bonney

Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive)

Aim:

To use the member database of e-healthspace.com.au to identify and quantify the factors that influence General Practitioners when referring patients to a particular Orthopaedic Surgeon

Method:

On line Survey of 9495 General practitioners who are registered on www.ehealthspace.com.au Seven point Likert scale used to rank responses from extremely positive to extremely negative to various factors that influence decisions to refer patients to an Orthopaedic Surgeon

Questions: 5 Broad Categories

Professional and personal reputation / Communication / Style of practice / Promotional activities / Access and cost

Results:

476 respondents.

407 proceeded beyond the demographic questions.

Demographic Questions:

Practice location …

Training Our Future Doctors To Deliver Public Health Education, Helen Rienits

Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive)

Delivering health education is, as we all know, done for the purpose of trying to encourage people, either individually or as a community, to change their behaviour with the intention of improving their health and well being and preventing certain lifestyle caused illnesses. We would all admit that changing behaviour is difficult and it often takes repeated health messages and much encouragement to effect behavioural change in a person or community. With the aging population and rise in preventable illnesses in our communities, health education has become the responsibility of all health professionals in all forms of contact with individuals …

Trajectories Of Depression And Their Relationship With Health Status And Social Service Use, Chun-Min Chen, Judy Mullan, David Griffiths, Irene A. Kreis, Tzuo-Yun Lan, Herng-Chia Chiu

Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive)

This longitudinal study was conducted between 1994 and 2004 in a cohort of Southern Taiwan community-living elderly residents. The study aims to explore the trajectories of depression and how these patterns differed between respondents who survived and those who died during data collection phases; this study also investigated how health status change and health/social service use predicted the different trajectories of depression. Eight hundred and ten participants had completed all six waves of the survey or were followed-up at each wave until death in the prospective study in Kaohsiung City. Depressive symptoms were evaluated by the Short Psychiatric Evaluation Schedule …

Do Doctors Have A Role In Public Health Education, Helen Rienits

Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive)

A study of people’s attitudes and responses to the presentation of health education by a doctor.

Improving Therapeutic Use Of Homework: Suggestions From Mental Health Clinicians, Peter Kelly, Frank P. Deane

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background. The majority of mental health clinicians report the use of homework to support their case management, but practitioner surveys indicate that homework is not routinely used. Aims. To examine barriers that mental health case managers experience in implementing homework and to identify strategies to promote successful homework administration. Method. One hundred thirty-four surveys were completed by mental health case managers. The survey examined their use of homework for individuals diagnosed with a severe mental health problem. It also asked them to identify barriers to regularly implement homework and describe strategies to promote more regular use of homework. Results. On …

A Strong Commitment To Mental Health Nursing, Renee Brighton, Angela Brown, Terence Froggatt, Susan Liersch

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health (SNMIH) at the University of Wollongong, places great emphasis on providing nursing students with fundamental education and knowledge in mental health nursing. There are two dedicated undergraduate mental health subjects delivered within the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) program. Both subjects are placed in adjacent sessions to provide a consolidated speciality experience for all BN students. The two subjects incorporate core values and principles to guide the teaching of mental health nursing, learning outcomes that reflect the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (ANMC) competencies and are based on recommendations from the Mental Health …

Implementation Of A Major In Mental Health Nursing In Australian Universities, Brenda Happell, Lorna Moxham, Karen-Ann Clarke

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The difficulty recruiting and retaining an adequate mental health nursing workforce is acknowledged. The major in mental health nursing has been identified as a strategy to promote this specialist area of practice as desirable for students’ future careers. Measuring its success requires the collection of detailed data about the structure, content, and uptake of these programmes. A survey was specifically developed to elicit descriptive information about the structure and content of a major in mental health nursing programmes. Fourteen universities participated in this research. Eight had implemented a major, one intends to do so in 2011, and five had abandoned …

Preface To Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, And Big Business Re-Create Race In The Twenty-First Century, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

Fatal Invention documents the emergence of a new biopolitics in the United States that relies on re-inventing race in biological terms using cutting-edge genomic science and biotechnologies. Some scientists are defining race as a biological category written in our genes, while the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries convert the new racial science into race-based products, such as race-specific medicines, ancestry tests, and DNA forensics, that incorporate false assumptions of racial difference at the genetic level. The genetic understanding of race calls for technological responses to racial disparities while masking the continuing impact of racism in a supposedly post-racial society. Instead, I …

Survey Of “Northern” Child And Maternal Health Research Being Conducted In Canada, M. H. George, Robert Armstrong

Paediatrics and Child Health, East Africa

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to better understand the scope of research being conducted by Canadian paediatric and maternal health centres on the topic of maternal child health of northern populations. In addition, the results are intended to help assess the prospects for the creation of a research network dedicated to this topic.

Study design: Questionnaire study complemented with review of database.

Methods: Data were collected using a short questionnaire with qualitative and quantitative questions. Surveys were sent by email to members of two Canadian national paediatric groups, representing 17 organizations. Supplementary information was obtained through review of …