Healthy living champions network: An opportunity for community pharmacy's sustained participation in tackling local health inequalities

Background Evaluations recognize healthy living champions (HLCs) as key contributors to the Health Living Pharmacy (HLP) project's success; the project has served to reduce pressure on family doctor services and clients who would have otherwise not sought professional advice have accessed HLP services. Objectives To investigate the impact of innovative networking opportunities in supporting HLCs to function within their role and to explore the network's potential in promoting sustained HLP participation. Method Twenty of Portsmouth's (England) HLCs (n = 33) agreed to participate in focus groups. Transcripts were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis guided by grounded theory. The transcripts were read repeatedly; recurrent themes were identified and coded manually and consensus was reached by discussion within the research team. Findings Network meetings provide HLCs with professional development, networking opportunities and continued encouragement. Recommendations to develop and sustain the network included the formation of a group committee and establishing of a communication facility accessible between meetings. Conclusion The successful Portsmouth HLP project informed the design of UK HLP projects. The current focus is to build a successful strategy to sustain the positive outcomes, building on the recognized enablers. This study contributes further lessons learned to guide health commissioners and service implementers to best support staff development, involvement and motivation through innovative practice

Developing a whole school food and fitness policy

This document is designed to guide and support schools as they develop whole school food & fitness policies. - Schools may wish to adopt a single overarching policy for healthy living to encompass the contributory strands of physical activity, food and drink, relationship and sex education and the prevention of substance misuse. This would be a particularly useful approach for small schools as it streamlines partnership working which is a feature of effective intervention and support

Care staff intentions to support adults with an intellectual disability to engage in physical activity: An application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Researchers suggest that people with an intellectual disability (ID) undertake less physical activity than the general population and many rely, to some extent, on others to help them to access activities. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model was previously found to significantly predict the intention of care staff to facilitate a healthy diet in those they supported. The present study examined whether the TPB was useful in predicting the intentions of 78 Scottish care staff to support people with ID to engage in physical activity. Regression analyses indicated that perceived behavioural control was the most significant predictor of both care staff intention to facilitate physical activity and reported physical activity levels of the people they supported. Attitudes significantly predicted care staff intention to support physical activity, but this intention was not itself significantly predictive of reported activity levels. Increasing carers' sense of control over their ability to support clients' physical activity may be more effective in increasing physical activity than changing their attitudes towards promoting activit

Aging in the Social Space

A publication called Aging in the Social Space is a compilation of studies, which deal with theoretical understanding and empirical solutions, learning about problem spheres, specifying content parallels of social, legal, economic, moral and ethical views on senior issues in society, which are closely related to each other and are interconnected. This publication focus on the case study of Poland. It is supposed to provide a multidimensional view of old age issues and issues related to aging and care for old people in society. We believe that it is natural also to name individual spheres, in which society has some eff ect, either direct or indirect, within issues concerning seniors. Learning about these spheres is the primary prerequisite for successful use of social help to seniors in society