OBJECTIVES In British Columbia (BC), Canada, all health care facilities must have a written staff policy on influenza immunization that includes notice that non-immunized staff can be excluded from work without pay during an influenza outbreak in the facility. In light of this policy, our objectives were to explore the views of BC health care workers (HCWs) regarding how best to promote vaccine...

This pilot investigation assesses whether barriers to children's healthy eating and physical activity reported by parents on a newly developed brief pediatric obesity screening and counseling tool are related to healthy eating and physical activity behaviors. The sample included parents of 115 Medicaid-enrolled children in a general pediatric clinic. Of 10 barriers, 7 were statistically associa...

BACKGROUND The rising burden of obesity in Tonga is alarming. The promotion of healthy behaviours and environments requires immediate urgent action and a multi-sectoral approach. A three-year community based study titled the Ma'alahi Youth Project (MYP) conducted in Tonga from 2005-2008 aimed to increase the capacity of the whole community (schools, churches, parents and adolescents) to promote...

If smokers have different lifestyle including dietary habit in comparison to non-smokers, this difference have an influence on the evaluation of the risks of smoking for tobacco-related diseases or the design of anti-smoking campaigns. In Japan, 1,745 men over the age of 40 were surveyed regarding health consciousness in 1996 and 2,136 men between the ages of 50 and 65 were surveyed regarding d...

Automatic orienting to unexpected changes in the environment is a pre-requisite for adaptive behavior. One prominent mechanism of automatic attentional control is the Orienting Response (OR). Despite the fundamental significance of the OR in everyday life, only little is known about how the OR is affected by healthy aging. We tested this question in two age groups (19-38 and 55-72 years) and me...

Three studies showed that the way that options are presented in a choice set—as combinations of intersecting attributes or in a more sequential “a la carte” choice format—affects the degree to which consumers adhere to their goals in the consumption setting. Specifically, using the context of food consumption and healthy eating, results showed that consumers were more likely to make double indu...

Adolescence is a period of accelerated growth and change, bridging the complex transition from childhood to adulthood. This period offers adolescents an opportunity to begin planning for their futures and to adopt healthy attitudes about risk behaviors that can continue into adulthood, thus setting the stage for a lifetime of desirable health behaviors. This study used the Youth Risk Behavior S...

BACKGROUND This study evaluates the effects of an intervention performed by youth health care professionals on child health behaviors. The intervention consisted of offering healthy lifestyle counseling to parents of overweight (not obese) 5-year-old children. Effects of the intervention on the child having breakfast, drinking sweet beverages, watching television and playing outside were evalua...

Parental characteristics were significant predictors of health, functional abilities, and behavior problems in adults with Down syndrome (n  =  75) over a 22-year time span, controlling for initial levels and earlier changes in these outcomes. Lower levels of behavior problems were predicted by improvements in maternal depressive symptoms. Higher levels of functional abilities were predicted by...

While individuals of Mexican origin are the largest immigrant group living in the U.S., this population is also the highest uninsured. Health disparities related to access to health care, among other social determinants, continue to be a challenge for this population. The government of Mexico, in an effort to address these disparities and improve the quality of life of citizens living abroad, h...