Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2013
Patterns and predictors of changes in active commuting over 12 months.
To assess the predictors of uptake and maintenance of walking and cycling, and of switching to the car as the usual mode of travel, for commuting. ⋯ Improving the convenience of walking, cycling and public transport and limiting the availability of workplace car parking may promote uptake and maintenance of active commuting.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2013
Persistent smoking as a predictor of disability pension due to musculoskeletal diagnoses: a 23 year prospective study of Finnish twins.
To investigate whether stability or changes in smoking predict disability pension (DP) due to low back diagnoses (LBD) and musculoskeletal diagnoses (MSD) after taking familial confounding into account using a co-twin design. ⋯ Persistent smoking predicts early disability pension due to musculoskeletal diagnoses and low back diagnoses independently from numerous confounding factors, including familial effects shared by the co-twins.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2013
ReviewSmoking cessation interventions for ethnic minority groups--a systematic review of adapted interventions.
Existing smoking cessation interventions tend to be under utilized by ethnic minority groups. We sought to identify smoking cessation interventions that have been adapted to meet the needs of African-, Chinese- and South Asian-origin populations, to increase understanding of the approaches used to promote behavior change, to assess their acceptability to the target populations, and to evaluate their effectiveness. ⋯ Given the evidence of greater acceptability of adapted interventions, it may be ethically preferable to use these. There is, however, no clear evidence of the effectiveness of adapted interventions in promoting smoking cessation in ethnic minority groups.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2013
Legislated changes to federal pension income in Canada will adversely affect low income seniors' health.
This study uses a population health intervention modeling approach to project the impact of recent legislated increases in age eligibility for Canadian federally-funded pension benefits on low income seniors' health, using food insecurity as a health indicator. ⋯ Raising the age of eligibility for public pension seniors' benefits in Canada from 65 to 67 years will negatively impact low income seniors' health, relegating those who are food insecure to continued hardship.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialSchool-based mindfulness instruction for urban male youth: a small randomized controlled trial.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been shown to improve mental health and reduce stress in a variety of adult populations. Here, we explore the effects of a school-based MBSR program for young urban males. ⋯ In this study, MBSR participants showed less anxiety, improved coping, and a possible attenuation of cortisol response to academic stress, when compared with HT participants. These results suggest that MBSR improves psychological functioning among urban male youth.