Association between state physical education (PE) requirements and PE participation,physical activity,and body mass index change

Objective

To determine if state physical education (PE) laws are associated with student physical education attendance and physical activity (PA), and whether physical education and competitive food laws, in conjunction, are associated with lower BMI change.

Method

State laws regarding physical education time requirements and competitive foods in 2003 and 2006 were classified as strong, weak, or none, based on codified law ratings obtained from the Classification of Laws Associated with School Students. Laws were linked to student data on PE attendance and physical activity (8th grade, Spring 2007) and BMI change (5th–8th grade, 2004–2007), obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (n = 5510 students in 40 states).

Results

Girls reported 0.31 more days of activity (95% CI: 0.02, 0.61) and were more likely to attend physical education ≥ 3 days/week (74.1% versus 52.1%, difference = 22.0, 95% CI: 2.1, 42.0) if they resided in states with strong physical education laws compared to no physical education laws. Weak physical education laws had modest associations with PE and activity, and there was no evidence that weak laws reduce BMI gain regardless of competitive food laws.

Conclusion

Strong physical education laws with specific time requirements may increase physical education attendance and activity in girls. There is insufficient evidence that physical education laws reduce student weight gain.     

Local Tobacco Control: Application of the Essential Public Health Services Model in a County Health Department’s Efforts to Put It Out Rockland

In 2000, Rockland County, a small suburban county north of New York City, dedicated $1 million of its Master Settlement Agreement funds to a comprehensive tobacco control program, Put It Out Rockland. Developed and implemented by the county health department, this program used an essential public health services model and an ongoing financial investment, within the context of strong statewide tobacco control efforts, to lower adult smoking rates to 9.7% and to reduce both smoking among youths and exposure to secondhand smoke over the ensuing decade. By combining state funds and local dollars for a total of $6.75 cost per capita, this comprehensive effort yielded 11 000 fewer smokers and translated to a potential savings of more than $24 million for the county.     

Measuring health outcomes of adolescents: report from a pilot study

There is a need to understand the practicality, validity and reliability of using utility measures with children and adolescents. We designed a pilot study in order to help guide the selection of an appropriate health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) questionnaire for adolescents to be used in the context of a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) of family therapy versus standard treatment for adolescents aged 11–17 years. The pilot study was carried out on a school sample of adolescents in the same age range as the RCT. Adolescents were asked to fill in three HRQoL questionnaires: the standard EQ-5D, the licensed Health Utilities Index HUI, and the child-friendly version of the standard EQ-5D: the EQ-5D for youth (EQ-5D-Y). This report explores the problems with the language and concepts embodied within those HRQoL questionnaires and open discussion regarding how we can value the health of adolescents for cost-utility analysis in a larger study.     

An Experimental Model of Heat Storage in Working Firefighters

Objective. Develop experimental models to study uncompensable heat stress (UCHS) in working firefighters (FFs). Methods. FFs ingested core temperature (Tc) capsules prior to performing sequential tasks in 40°C andpersonal protective ensemble (PPE), or 18°C andno PPE. Both trials were conducted in an environmental chamber with FFs using self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). Results. FFs exercising in heat andPPE reproduced UCHS conditions. For every FF in both trials for whom the capsules worked, Tc was elevated, andTc_max occurred after completion of study protocol. Trials with PPE resulted in a mean maximum temperature of 38.94°C (± 0.37°C); Tc_max reached 40.4°C. Without PPE, maximum Tc averaged 37.79°C (± 0.07°C). Heat storage values ranged from 131 to 1205 kJ, averaging 578 kJ (± 151.47kJ) with PPE and210.83 kJ (± 21.77kJ) without PPE. Conclusions. An experimental model has been developed that simulates the initial phases of an interior fire attack to study the physiology of UCHS in FF. The hot environment andPPE increase maximum Tc andheat storage over that due to the exertion required to perform the tasks andmay decrease time to volitional fatigue. This model will permit controlled studies to optimize work-rest cycles, rehab conditions, andphysical conditioning of FFs.     

Rationale and design of the Kidney Precision Medicine Project

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AR in VR: assessing surgical augmented reality visualizations in a steerable virtual reality environment

Purpose 

Augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a promising approach to support surgeries; however, its application in real world scenarios is still very limited. Besides sophisticated registration tasks that need to be solved, surgical AR visualizations have not been studied in a standardized and comparative manner. To foster the development of future AR applications, a steerable framework is urgently needed to rapidly evaluate new visualization techniques, explore their individual parameter spaces and define relevant application scenarios.

Methods 

Inspired by its beneficial usage in the automotive industry, the underlying concept of virtual reality (VR) is capable of transforming complex real environments into controllable virtual ones. We present an interactive VR framework, called Augmented Visualization Box (AVB), in which visualizations for AR can be systematically investigated without explicitly performing an error-prone registration. As use case, a virtual laparoscopic scenario with anatomical surface models was created in a computer game engine. In a study with eleven surgeons, we analyzed this VR setting under different environmental factors and its applicability for a quantitative assessment of different AR overlay concepts.

Results 

According to the surgeons, the visual impression of the VR scene is mostly influenced by 2D surface details and lighting conditions. The AR evaluation shows that, depending on the visualization used and its capability to encode depth, 37% to 91% of the experts made wrong decisions, but were convinced of their correctness. These results show that surgeons have more confidence in their decisions, although they are wrong, when supported by AR visualizations.

Conclusion 

With AVB, intraoperative situations are realistically simulated to quantitatively benchmark current AR overlay methods. Successful surgical task execution in an AR system can only be facilitated if visualizations are customized toward the surgical task.