Preventive medicine
-
Preventive medicine · Dec 2014
Comparative StudyHow far from home? The locations of physical activity in an urban U.S. setting.
Little is known about where physical activity (PA) occurs, or whether different demographic groups accumulate PA in different locations. ⋯ A large proportion of MVPA time is spent at "near" locations, corresponding to the home neighborhood studied in previous PA research. "Away" locations also host time spent in MVPA and should be the focus of future research.
-
Preventive medicine · Dec 2014
Comparative StudyImpact of trained champions of comprehensive school physical activity programs on school physical activity offerings, youth physical activity and sedentary behaviors.
A quasi-experimental cluster-controlled design was used to test the impact of comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) professional development on changes in school physical activity (PA) offerings, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behaviors of 9-14 year-old children during school. ⋯ This study provides preliminary evidence for CSPAP professional development programs to influence school-level PA offerings and offset student-level declines in MVPA and increases in sedentary behavior.
-
Preventive medicine · Dec 2014
Impact of the removal of light and mild descriptors from cigarette packages in Ontario, Canada: switching to "light replacement" brand variants.
This study assessed cessation and brand switching among smokers in Ontario, Canada after tobacco companies' voluntary removal of 'light' and 'mild' descriptors from cigarette packages. ⋯ Even after removing misleading descriptors from cigarette packs, smokers continued to report using light brand variants, and many switched to newly introduced light replacement brand variants. After full implementation of the ban, cessation did not vary by brand variant.
-
Preventive medicine · Dec 2014
A meta-analysis of serious digital games for healthy lifestyle promotion.
Several systematic reviews have described health-promoting effects of serious games but so far no meta-analysis has been reported. This paper presents a meta-analysis of 54 serious digital game studies for healthy lifestyle promotion, in which we investigated the overall effectiveness of serious digital games on healthy lifestyle promotion outcomes and the role of theoretically and clinically important moderators. Findings showed that serious games have small positive effects on healthy lifestyles (g=0.260, 95% CI 0.148; 0.373) and their determinants (g=0.334, 95% CI 0.260; 0.407), especially for knowledge. ⋯ Serious games are best individually tailored to both socio-demographic and change need information, and benefit from a strong focus on game theories or a dual theoretical foundation in both behavioral prediction and game theories. They can be effective either as a stand-alone or multi-component programs, and appeal to populations regardless of age and gender. Given that effects of games remain heterogeneous, further explorations of which game features create larger effects are needed.