Air pollutants of concern include traffic-related air pollution, including particulate matter in respirable coarse and fine size fractions. There are no critical studies to date into associations between knowledge, awareness, and attitudes in using proper respiratory masks and prevalence of respiratory symptoms among urban street vendors in Thailand. In this study, we estimated adverse respirat...

BACKGROUND A new generation of user-centric information systems is emerging in health care as patient health record (PHR) systems. These systems create a platform supporting the new vision of health services that empowers patients and enables patient-provider communication, with the goal of improving health outcomes and reducing costs. This evolution has generated new sets of data and capabilit...

This paper investigates personal knowledge development in online learning environments using the perspective of a model adapted from Nonaka and colleagues’ SECI model. To this end, the SECI model, which was originally designed to describe organisational knowledge creation and conversion, was adapted to conceptualise personal knowledge development in online learning at the individual level. As t...

BACKGROUND There is an increasing push in Western healthcare for people to 'manage' their health, a key aspect of what has been called the 'new public health'. It has been argued that this 'personal health management' - informal work done to monitor, inform, or influence one's health - may be a burden, with potential to contribute to poor health outcomes. However, there is little research actua...

BACKGROUND There is a high and increasing prevalence of impairments among children and adolescents in the West. Many countries offer personal assistance in the form of individualised support for people living in the community by a paid assistant other than a healthcare professional for at least 20 hours per week. OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness of personal assistance for children and a...

OBJECTIVES Psychological well-being predicts favorable cardiovascular outcomes, but less evidence addresses biological mediators underlying these effects. Therefore, associations among well-being and metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) were examined in a national sample. METHODS Survey of Midlife in the US participants (MIDUS; n = 1205) provided survey assessments of hedonic (positive affect, life sa...

Writers, artists, lay observers, and many behavioral scientists, such as William James, have long believed that emotional expression reveals something fundamental about the life an individual leads. For several reasons, however, the scientific study of facial expression and personal adjustment has emerged only in the past 15 years. One reason is that reliable methods for measuring facial expres...

Some cancer screening and treatment decisions are not clear cut because outcomes are uncertain or options have different benefit/risk profiles. "Decision aids" have been developed as adjuncts to counseling so that patients can learn about benefits and risks, can consider their personal values, and can participate with their practitioner in decision making. The purpose of this paper is to review...

PURPOSE To study the effect of a peer mentoring group (PMG). METHOD Six junior clinician educator faculty and one senior faculty at the University of Washington Medical Center's Department of Psychiatry formed a PMG in 2006. The PMG had 30 meetings during 2006-2010. Group format, goals, and meeting agendas were determined solely by participants. Feedback about positive and negative outcomes o...