Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
Work, household, and leisure-time physical activity and risk of mortality in the EPIC-Spain cohort.
Large-scale longitudinal data on the association of domain-specific physical activity (PA) and mortality is limited. Our objective was to evaluate the association of work, household (HPA), and leisure time PA (LTPA) with overall and cause-specific mortality in the EPIC-Spain study. ⋯ HPA was associated to lower mortality risk in men and women from the EPIC-Spain cohort, whereas LTPA also contributed to reduce risk of death in women. Considering the large proportion of total daily PA that HPA represents in some population groups, these results are of public health importance.
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Lack of health insurance limits access to preventive services, including cancer screening. We examined the effects of Medicare eligibility on the appropriate use of cancer screening services in the United States. ⋯ Medicare eligibility impacts the prevalence of cancer screening, likely as a result of increased access to primary care. Low-income individuals benefit most from Medicare eligibility. Expanded public insurance coverage to these individuals may improve access to preventive services.
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
Preventing dementia by promoting physical activity and the long-term impact on health and social care expenditures.
Preventing dementia has been proposed to increase population health as well as reduce the demand for health and social care. Our aim was to evaluate whether preventing dementia by promoting physical activity (PA) a) improves population health or b) reduces expenditure for both health and social care if one takes into account the additional demand in health and social care caused by increased life expectancy. ⋯ Preventing dementia by increasing PA increases life expectancy and can result in decreased spending overall on health and social care, even after additional spending during life years gained has been taken into account. If prevention is targeted at the physically inactive, savings in dementia-related costs outweigh the additional spending in life years gained.
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
The association between participation in a pay-for-performance program and macrovascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes in Taiwan: A nationwide population-based cohort study.
Diabetes and diabetes-related complications are major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide and contribute substantially to health care costs. Proper care can prevent or delay vascular complications in people with type 2 diabetes. We sought to examine whether a diabetes pay-for-performance (P4P) program under Taiwan's National Health Insurance program decreased risk of macrovascular complications in type 2 diabetes patients, and associated risk factors. ⋯ Compared with patients not enrolled in the P4P program, P4P patients had lower risk of developing serious vascular complications. Our empirical findings provide evidence for the potential long-term benefit of P4P programs in reducing risks of macrovascular complications.
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
The period prevalence of risk behavior co-occurrence among Canadians.
While the benefits of complying with health recommendations is well documented, a considerable proportion of Canadians engage in multiple modifiable risk behaviors. The purpose of this multi-wave longitudinal study was to identify the individual period prevalence and co-occurrence of multiple modifiable risk behaviors, particularly excessive alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and tobacco use, within a nationally representative sample of Canadians. ⋯ Understanding patterns of modifiable risk behaviors is an initial step in developing and implementing public health interventions. The co-occurrence of these three risk behaviors is a viable concern for one in five Canadians. For these individuals, the likelihood of encountering premature morbidity and mortality is escalated. As the majority of Canadians reported being physically inactive, allocating limited resources towards enhancing leisure-time physical activity levels could have significant population-level implications for improving the health of Canadians.