Tackling health literacy: adaptation of public hypertension educational materials for an Indo-Asian population in Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Indo-Asians in Canada are at increased risk for cardiovascular diseases. There is a need for cultural and language specific educational materials relating to this risk. During this project we developed and field tested the acceptability of a hypertension public education pamphlet tailored to fit the needs of an at risk local Indo-Asian population, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A community health board representing Calgary's Indo-Asian communities identified the culturally specific educational needs and language preferences of the local population. An adaptation of an existing English language Canadian Public Hypertension Recommendations pamphlet was created considering the literacy and translation challenges. The adapted pamphlet was translated into four Indo-Asian languages. The adapted pamphlets were disseminated as part of the initial educational component of a community-based culturally and language-sensitive cardiovascular risk factor screening and management program. Field testing of the materials was undertaken when participants returned for program follow-up seven to 12 months later.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fifty-nine English-speaking participants evaluated and confirmed the concept validity of the English adapted version. 28 non-English speaking participants evaluated the Gujarati (N = 13) and Punjabi (N = 15) translated versions of the adapted pamphlets. All participants found the pamphlets acceptable and felt they had improved their understanding of hypertension.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Involving the target community to identify health issues as well as help to create culturally, language and literacy sensitive health education materials ensures resources are highly acceptable to that community. Minor changes to the materials will be needed prior to formal testing of hypertension knowledge and health decision-making on a larger scale within this at risk community.</p

Comparison of Complexity Measures for Structural Health Monitoring

The field of structural health monitoring (SHM) applies damage detection techniques to provide timely in-situ system condition assessment. Previously, researchers have suggested a fundamental axiom for SHM that states, “damage will increase the complexity of a system.” One way this increased complexity can manifest itself is in the increased complexity of sensor data recorded from the structure when damage occurs. The question then becomes how to best quantify the increase in complexity of those data. Information complexity is one such approach and within this framework various information entropy quantities have been proposed as measures of complexity. The literature has shown that there are multiple information entropy measures, including; Shannon Entropy, Rényi Entropy, Permutation Entropy, Sample Entropy, Approximate Entropy, and Spectral Entropy. With multiple measures proposed to quantify information entropy; a study to compare the relative effectiveness of these entropy measures in the context of SHM is needed. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of entropy-based methods in distinguishing between “Healthy” and “Unhealthy” labeled datasets. The labeled datasets considered in this study were obtained from a 4DOF impact oscillator, a rotating machine with a damaged bearing, and an impact oscillator excited by a rotating machine. Furthermore, two methods were used in this study to classify the results from the different entropy measures; Naïve-Bayes classification, and K-means clustering. Effectiveness of a given entropy measure is determined by the number of misclassifications produced when compared to the true labels. The analysis showed that entropy measures obtained from data corresponding to sensors closer to the damage source had fewer misclassifications for the datasets tested. For the datasets considered in this study, the researchers concluded that each dataset had a different most effective entropy measure. The study would need to be expanded to include other classification methods and other datasets to define more precisely which entropy measure is the most effective in identifying the increase in complexity associated with damage and, hence, distinguishing between healthy and damaged data

Mediational Effects of Self-Efficacy Dimensions in the Relationship between Knowledge of Dengue and Dengue Preventive Behaviour with Respect to Control of Dengue Outbreaks:A Structural Equation Model of a Cross-Sectional Survey

BACKGROUND:Dengue fever is endemic in Malaysia, with frequent major outbreaks in urban areas. The major control strategy relies on health promotional campaigns aimed at encouraging people to reduce mosquito breeding sites close to people's homes. However, such campaigns have not always been 100% effective. The concept of self-efficacy is an area of increasing research interest in understanding how health promotion can be most effective. This paper reports on a study of the impact of self-efficacy on dengue knowledge and dengue preventive behaviour. METHODS AND FINDINGS:We recruited 280 adults from 27 post-outbreak villages in the state of Terengganu, east coast of Malaysia. Measures of health promotion and educational intervention activities and types of communication during outbreak, level of dengue knowledge, level and strength of self-efficacy and dengue preventive behaviour were obtained via face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. A structural equation model was tested and fitted the data well (χ(2) = 71.659, df = 40, p = 0.002, RMSEA = 0.053, CFI = 0.973, TLI = 0.963). Mass media, local contact and direct information-giving sessions significantly predicted level of knowledge of dengue. Level and strength of self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between knowledge of dengue and dengue preventive behaviours. Strength of self-efficacy acted as partial mediator in the relationship between knowledge of dengue and dengue preventive behaviours. CONCLUSIONS:To control and prevent dengue outbreaks by behavioural measures, health promotion and educational interventions during outbreaks should now focus on those approaches that are most likely to increase the level and strength of self-efficacy