Sex Education as Health Promotion: What Does It Take?

Health promotion should be evidence-based, needs driven, subject to evaluation, and ecological in perspective. How can this be achieved in the context of school-based sex education? Adopting new behaviors and giving up old habits involves common decision-making, planning, motivational control, and goal prioritization processes. Consequently, despite the particular nature of sexual behavior, models of cognitive change applied to other health-related behaviors also apply to the promotion of safer sex practice. Young people are less likely to have unprotected sexual intercourse if they have acquired a variety of social skills relevant to dealing with romantic and sexual relationships. Many of these social skills and the methods employed to facilitate their development are also important to the promotion of other health behaviors. However, teaching social skills relevant to sexual behavior in classroom settings requires specialist expertise both in program design and in delivery by teachers or facilitators. Theory- and evidence-based programs designed to promote such skills and modified on the basis of effectiveness evaluations are most likely to have an impact on the rate of pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections among young people. Yet, such programs may not be used in schools because of policy and cultural constraints. When this is the case, optimally effective health promotion cannot be delivered. Health promoters should acknowledge these challenges and facilitate the adoption and implementation of effective sexual health promotion programs by targeting communities and legislators.     

Alcohol Advertising: What Makes It Attractive to Youth?

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the affective responses of youth toward specific elements featured in television alcohol advertisements (i.e., people character, animal character, music, story, and humor). It also examines the associations between advertising likeability and its potential influence. Respondents were 253 children and adolescents in California (47% male; aged 10–17). Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires in group settings. Respondents were shown a stimulus tape containing television advertisements for beer and soft drinks. The tape was stopped at the end of each advertisement to allow respondents to answer questions about that advertisement before viewing the next. Perceived likeability of beer advertisements is a function of the positive affective responses evoked by the specific elements featured in the advertisements. Liking of specific elements featured in beer advertisements significantly contributed to the overall likeability of these advertisements and subsequently to advertising effectiveness indicated by purchase intent of product and brand promoted by these advertisements. Advertisements that focus primarily on product qualities or send a message of legal drinking age were rated less favorably and evoked less desire to purchase the product. Implications for countering the effects of alcohol advertising on young people are discussed.     

Medical physics in 2020: Will we still be relevant?

From the time when Rōentgen and other physicists made the discoveries which led to the development of radiology, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, medical physicists have played a pivotal role in the development of new technologies that have revolutionized the way medicine is practiced today. Medical physicists have been transforming scientific advances in the research laboratories to improving the quality of life for patients; indeed innovations such as computed tomography, positron emission tomography and linear accelerators which collectively have improved the medical outcomes for millions of people. In order for radiation-delivery techniques to improve in targeting accuracy, optimal dose distribution and clinical outcome, convergence of imaging and therapy is the key. It is timely for these two specialties to work closer again. This can be achieved by means of cross-disciplinary research, common conferences and workshops, and collaboration in education and training for all. The current emphasis is on enhancing the specific skill development and competency of a medical physicist at the expense of their future roles and opportunities. This emphasis is largely driven by financial and political pressures for optimizing limited resources in health care. This has raised serious concern on the ability of the next generation of medical physicists to respond to new technologies. In addition in the background loom changes of tsunami proportion. The clearly defined boundaries between the different disciplines in medicine are increasingly blurred and those between diagnosis, therapy and management are also following suit. The use of radioactive particles to treat tumours using catheters, high-intensity focused ultrasound, electromagnetic wave ablation and photodynamic therapy are just some areas challenging the old paradigm. The uncertainty and turf battles will only explode further and medical physicists will not be spared. How would medical physicists fit into this changing scenario? We are in the midst of molecular revolution. Are we prepared to explore the newer technologies such as nanotechnology, drug discovery, pre-clinical imaging, optical imaging and biomedical informatics? How are our curricula adapting to the changing needs? We should remember the late Professor John Cameron who advocated imagination and creativity — these important attributes will make us still relevant in 2020 and beyond. To me the future is clear: “To achieve more, we should imagine together.”     

What Do the Theories of Egon Brunswik Have to Say to Medical Education?

Every day physicians make judgments about patient management and diagnosis based on less than perfect information from many different sources. Judgment and decision-making research has taught us a great deal about such decisions, but these insights rarely find their way into the medical curriculum. One productive line of investigation in the study of judgment and decision making has followed the insights and theories developed by the psychologist, Egon Brunswik. His theories are becoming increasingly relevant to modern judgment problems. In this paper, I outline Brunswik’s theories, trace their development over the last 50 years and speculate on what role they should play in medical education.     

Knowledge Management in Healthcare: What Does It Involve? How Is It Measured?

While knowledge exists in all healthcare organizations, it often remains in silos or on the sidelines, neither used to its maximum potential nor purposefully focused on strategic results. In order to facilitate the development of strategically valuable knowledge, this article outlines seven knowledge-building dimensions that create a solid knowledgemanagement lever within the organization. Additionally, the article helps readers to come to grips with accountability by suggesting strategic outcomes for knowledge management. A particular focus is on lead or forward-looking indicators that track the progress and success of knowledge management.     

Medical Tourists: Who Goes and What Motivates Them?

This study relates consumers' attitudes toward medical tourism to a number of consumer characteristics, such as age, education, income, and insurance status. Principal components analysis of the attitudes of 289 consumers from various communities of North Carolina resulted in three attitude-related factors: economic, treatment-related, and travel-related. Major findings include: (a) the uninsured and low-income consumers are more sensitive to economic factors than the insured and the middle-income consumers; (b) the 51- to 64-year-olds are less motivated by economic factors than young adults; (c) surprisingly, the better one's health, the more one is motivated by treatment-related factors.     

Meningococcal Infections and Meningitis: What is New?

Meningococcal infection is one of the very few severe bacterial infections, in this era, that still can kill a relatively healthy child within minutes. Fortunately, it is a relatively rare disease. Rural practitioners may see one affected child once every 2-3 years, but once seen they will never forget it. The present article gives some examples of case scenarios along with a brief overview of the problem, with emphasis on early diagnosis, prevention and possible future developments.     

Letter to the Editor: Response to “What Women Want From Abortion Counseling in the United States: A Qualitative Study of Abortion Patients in 2008”

Abstract

Diabetes is aggravated by a sedentary lifestyle, obesity and smoking. Based on a theoretical model relating attitudes and behavior, this study examined the association between physicians' self efficacy in counseling diabetic patients on life style behaviors and their counseling practices. Data were gathered from a representative sample of 743 primary care physicians in Israel's two largest health plans. The main findings were that only a small percentage of physicians felt capable of influencing their patients' life-style behaviors. Self-efficacy had an independent effect on the likelihood of counseling diabetic patients on life style behaviors, controlling for other background variables. We conclude that there is a need for enhancing physicians' life-style counseling skills, and that social workers could expand their role by training physicians to counsel effectively. This could both improve the care of diabetic patients, and strengthen the status of the social work profession in the healthcare system.