American journal of preventive medicine
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A recent systematic review of home-based, multi-trigger, multicomponent interventions with an environmental focus showed their effectiveness in reducing asthma morbidity among children and adolescents. These interventions included home visits by trained personnel to assess the level of and reduce adverse effects of indoor environmental pollutants, and educate households with an asthma client to reduce exposure to asthma triggers. The purpose of the present review is to identify economic values of these interventions and present ranges for the main economic outcomes (e.g., program costs, benefit-cost ratios, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios). ⋯ The benefits from home-based, multi-trigger, multicomponent interventions with an environmental focus can match or even exceed their program costs. Based on cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness studies, the results of this review show that these programs provide a good value for dollars spent on the interventions.
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Smoking in movies is prevalent. However, use of content analysis to describe trends in smoking in movies has provided mixed results and has not tapped what adolescents actually perceive. ⋯ Teenagers' perception of the prevalence of smoking in movies declined over time, which may be attributable to changes made by the movie industry. Despite the decline, teenagers were still exposed to a moderate amount of smoking imagery. Interventions that further reduce teenage exposure to smoking in movies may be needed to have an effect on adolescent smoking.
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Public health services and systems research (PHSSR) focuses on the structure, organization, and legal basis of domestic public health activities and their effect on population health. An accurate description of the field is needed to empower funding agencies and other stakeholders to coordinate PHSSR activities and to foster the development of the field. The purpose of the study is to characterize the emerging community of researchers engaged in PHSSR. This study (1) describes dynamics of this growing community and (2) identifies research themes, subgroups within the field, and collaboration among groups. ⋯ Although a nucleus group of productive and engaged individuals participate in PHSSR, most also publish broadly on health services research and population health. This trend suggests that this emerging field cannot yet support a singular focus on PHSSR. Lack of funding sources and defined career paths likely contribute to this pattern. An overview of collaboration in PHSSR is an important step in advancing a coordinated research agenda and attracting sustainable funding streams for this field.
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As the prevalence of childhood obesity has risen in past decades, more attention has been given to how the neighborhood food environment affects children's health outcomes. ⋯ Although food store inventories were not assessed and food store indices were not created, the availability of neighborhood food stores may affect a young girl's weight trajectory over time.
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Differential effects of depression on smoking cessation in a diverse sample of smokers in treatment.
Recent cross-sectional evidence suggests that the effect of depression on smoking prevalence and quit ratios differs by race/ethnicity. ⋯ This research is the first to prospectively demonstrate a racially/ethnically differentiated effect of depressive symptoms on smoking cessation, and it has implications for targeted smoking-cessation treatments as it indicates that depression may not be a key treatment target for Latinos.