Fruit and vegetables on prescription: A brief intervention in primary care

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Fruit and vegetables on prescription: A brief intervention in primary care, Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 2014, 27 (supplement 2), pp. 186-193 which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jhn.12109. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.Background Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is a goal for the UK. Therefore, the effectiveness of a fruit and vegetable voucher scheme coupled with key ‘5-a-day’ consumption messages as a brief intervention in primary care consultations was assessed in this study. Methods 1188 vouchers as a prescription for fruits and vegetables were routinely distributed to patients attending a primary health care centre in a deprived area, and 124 volunteer patients routinely attending the centre were included. Telephone based questionnaires were used to examine changes in consumption in the short and medium term. Other key aspects assessed in the evaluation related to fruit and vegetable purchasing behaviour, knowledge relating to what constitutes a portion size, the relationship between food and health, and barriers to consumption. Results Although 76.2% of participants used the prescription vouchers when purchasing fruits and vegetables, a significant change in the consumption or purchasing behaviour was not observed (p0.05). Participants’ level of knowledge relating to number of portions recommended and the portion size of different fruits and vegetables showed moderate increase from baseline to short term and to medium term. The primary barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption were reported as ‘the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables’ and ‘the money available to spend on food’. Conclusion The use of “the fruit and vegetable on prescription” scheme was an effective method of engaging participants in improving awareness of key diet related health messages. However, further intervention is required to produce a significant impact on the actual behaviour change. Keywords fruit and vegetable prescription, mainstreaming prevention, health settingsThe study was funded by Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the Big Lottery Fund.This book chapter was submitted to the RAE2014 for the University of Chester - Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy

Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116 000 European men and women

Peer reviewe

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements