Puppets on a String? How Young Adolescents Explore Gender and Health in Advertising

This article presents qualitative research on young adolescents’ abilities in communicating and evaluating health messages in advertising especially how they understand and create gendered identities. A group of grade 6-8 students learned about media techniques and movie making. In groups divided by gender, they created iMovie advertisements for health activities in their school. They represented themselves in these advertisements by creating stick puppets. Observations during lessons, examination of movies and puppets, and interviews with students and their teacher revealed that young adolescents were neither completely manipulated by media nor were they completely in charge of their responses to media’s messages about gender. Offering students an opportunity to de-brief media experiences also helped them to develop critical media health literacy

Erratum to: Methods for evaluating medical tests and biomarkers

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s41512-016-0001-y.]

Ornato e despojamento no mundo fabril

O artigo investiga algumas das tendências da arquitetura gerada por fábricas - galpões industriais, moradias, igrejas, escolas, clubes etc. -, erguida no Brasil entre as duas últimas décadas do século XIX e as primeiras do XX. Apoia-se em amplo inventário, como base para um esforço de análise que se propõe a identificar os temas e usos predominantes dos ornatos aplicados a construções geradas por fábricas, as referências historicistas mobilizadas e eventuais rupturas de signos arquitetônicos tipológicos, e, no limite, a abolição de ornatos e dos referidos signos. Assim, de um lado, trata da penetração da linguagem eclética nessas construções, investigando o repertório formal utilizado em diferentes tipologias. De outro, trata da simultânea difusão de uma estética tipicamente fabril, fundamentada em noções de economia, eficiência, utilidade e funcionalidade. Mostra como tais noções se expressam ora em uma simplificação ou ausência de ornatos, ora no uso de ornatos cujos temas remetem ao mundo das máquinas; às vezes, no distanciamento ou abandono de signos arquitetônicos tipológicos consagrados; ou, ainda, no emprego de materiais produzidos industrialmente e que se difundiram a partir, sobretudo, da arquitetura de fábricas.The article examines some aspects of the architecture created for factories - warehouses, houses, churches, schools, clubs etc. -, built in Brazil between the two last decades of the nineteenth century and early of the twentieth century. The research relies on extensive inventory, the basis on which an analysis effort is realized that aims to identify the themes and predominant use of ornament applied to constructions produced by factories, the historicist references mobilized and eventual disruption of typological architectural signs, and, ultimately, the elimination of ornament and of those signs. Therefore, on one side, it deals with the penetration of the eclectic language in these buildings, by examining the formal repertoire used in different typologies. On the other side, it deals with simultaneous diffusion of a typical manufacturing aesthetic, based on notions of economy, efficiency, utility and functionality. It shows how such notions are expressed in either a simplification or the lack of ornament, sometimes in the use of ornament whose themes relate to the world of machines, sometimes in the detachment or abandonment of embodied architectural typological signs, or even the use of industrially produced materials that have spread from mainly the architecture of factories

Evidence synthesis to inform model-based cost-effectiveness evaluations of diagnostic tests: a methodological systematic review of health technology assessments

Background: Evaluations of diagnostic tests are challenging because of the indirect nature of their impact on patient outcomes. Model-based health economic evaluations of tests allow different types of evidence from various sources to be incorporated and enable cost-effectiveness estimates to be made beyond the duration of available study data. To parameterize a health-economic model fully, all the ways a test impacts on patient health must be quantified, including but not limited to diagnostic test accuracy. Methods: We assessed all UK NIHR HTA reports published May 2009-July 2015. Reports were included if they evaluated a diagnostic test, included a model-based health economic evaluation and included a systematic review and meta-analysis of test accuracy. From each eligible report we extracted information on the following topics: 1) what evidence aside from test accuracy was searched for and synthesised, 2) which methods were used to synthesise test accuracy evidence and how did the results inform the economic model, 3) how/whether threshold effects were explored, 4) how the potential dependency between multiple tests in a pathway was accounted for, and 5) for evaluations of tests targeted at the primary care setting, how evidence from differing healthcare settings was incorporated. Results: The bivariate or HSROC model was implemented in 20/22 reports that met all inclusion criteria. Test accuracy data for health economic modelling was obtained from meta-analyses completely in four reports, partially in fourteen reports and not at all in four reports. Only 2/7 reports that used a quantitative test gave clear threshold recommendations. All 22 reports explored the effect of uncertainty in accuracy parameters but most of those that used multiple tests did not allow for dependence between test results. 7/22 tests were potentially suitable for primary care but the majority found limited evidence on test accuracy in primary care settings. Conclusions: The uptake of appropriate meta-analysis methods for synthesising evidence on diagnostic test accuracy in UK NIHR HTAs has improved in recent years. Future research should focus on other evidence requirements for cost-effectiveness assessment, threshold effects for quantitative tests and the impact of multiple diagnostic tests

Erratum to: Methods for evaluating medical tests and biomarkers

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s41512-016-0001-y.]

Reaching Teenagers Where They Are: Best Practices for Girls’ Sexual Health Education

It is well established that girls face an ever-growing list of sexual health challenges. There is a paucity of available literature on ways to reach and teach adolescent girls about sexual health issues and use of health promoting strategies. This article focuses on suggestions for teachers and health care practitioners on developing knowledge competencies, or health literacies, in the area of adolescent girls’ sexual health. We suggest a number of health education practices such as the application of literacy strategies and gender sensitive, developmentally appropriate lesson plans. Instructors, both teachers and health care providers, need also to consider the school or community’s context, curriculum factors and the learning environment. Effective instructional frameworks for lesson planning can help school teachers and health care providers deliver effective sexual health education

The Erosion of Self: An Ethnographic Study of Women's Experience of Marriage to Alcoholic Husbands

An ethnographic study according to Spradley's (1979) Developmental Research Sequence (DRS) Method was conducted in order to develop knowledge about how women live out, interpret, and express the experience of living with an alcoholic husband. The discourses surrounding women whose husbands are alcoholic have been used to minimize women's experience. In addition, these same discourses have also contributed to the concept of codependency, an explanatory theme used in alcohol treatment programs and recent popular literature to dehne the wives' difficulties. In contrast, what stood out from this study is evidence of a complex interaction in the experience of women married to alcoholics involving internalization of cultural expectations, weakening of self, and embeddedness in an alcohol-dependent marriage. Suggestions for counsellors include consideration of how internalization of cultural norms and the interactional dynamics of the marital relationship seriously affect the women's experience. Further, ethnographic questions could be employed therapeutically to map out clients' meaning constructs and to develop a coherent understanding of clients' worlds. Finally, ethnographic questioning could be integrated into counsellor training programs to raise trainees' awareness of the significance of their clients' use of language.Une étude ethnographique, selon la méthode de la Developmental Research Sequence (DRS) (Séquence de la recherche développementale) de Spradley (1979), a été conduite dans le but de développer une connaissance sur comment les femmes vivent, interprètent et expriment l'expérience de vivre avec un mari alcoolique. Les traités concernant les femmes dont les maris sont des alcooliques ont été utilisés pour minimiser les expériences de ces femmes. De plus, ces mêmes traités ont aussi contribué au concept de codépendance, un thème explicatif utilisé dans les programmes de traitement de l'alcoolisme et dans les récentes publications populaires, pour définir les difficultés de ces épouses. Par contraste, ce qui est ressorti de cette étude est l'évidence d'une interaction complexe de femmes mariées à des alcooliques impliquant l'intériorisation des attentes culturelles, un amoindrissement du concept de soi et Fenlisement dans un mariage alcoolique-dépendant. Il est suggéré aux conseillers de prendre en considération que l'intériorisation des nonnes culturelles et les dynamiques interactives de la relation maritale affectent sérieusement l'expérience des femmes. De plus, des questions ethnographiques pourraient être employées thérapeutiquement pour établir les grandes lignes de la signification du construit des clientes et pour développer une compréhension cohérente des mondes de ces clientes. Finalement, un entraînement sur comment formuler et présenter des questions ethnographiques pourraient faire partie du programme de formation des conseillers pour familiariser ceux-ci avec la signification du langage utilisé parleurs clients