Weight Care Project: Health professionals' attitudes and ability to assess body weight status - Study protocol

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health professionals working in primary care and public health have opportunities to address body weight status issues with their patients through face-to-face contact. The objectives of this all-Ireland project are: 1. to assess the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of key health professional groups on body weight status; 2. to assess the health professional groups' ability to identify body weight status in both adults and children. The health professional groups are: (a) community related public health nurses; (b) school public health nurses; (c) GPs and practice nurses (primary care); and (d) occupational health nurses (workplace) from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This all-Ireland multi-disciplinary project follows a mixed methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and consists of four components:</p> <p>1. Literature review - to explore the role of health professionals in managing obesity through spontaneous intervention in a variety of health promotion settings.</p> <p>2. Telephone interviews and focus groups - to gain an in-depth insight into the views of health professionals in assessing body weight status.</p> <p>3. Survey (primarily online but also paper-based) - to determine the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of health professionals in assessing body weight status.</p> <p>4. Online evaluation study - an online interactive programme will be developed to assess health professionals' ability to identify the body weight status of adults and children.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This project will assess and report the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of key health professional groups within Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on body weight status, and their ability to identify body weight status in both adults and children. The results of this project will generate recommendations for clinical practice in managing obesity, which may inform policy guidelines.</p

Opioids: Program Evaluation Challenges and the Need for New Evaluation Scholarship

The Covid-19 pandemic has complicated efforts to address the US’s opioid crisis with a comprehensive, multi-part federal effort that combines primary medical care, essential support services, outreach to persons who misuse substances, patient engagement, and access to medications for opioid use disorder (OUD). This webinar will focus on how the pandemic is impacting efforts to address the opioid crisis. The panelists will also discuss some of the recommendations of the ASPPH Task Force on Public Health Approaches to the Opioid Crisis and how the pandemic might impact the panel’s recommendations, including its recommendation that a multi-site, multi-institutional collaborative evaluation structure be created that can leverage the strengths of different universities and agencies toward an effective, coordinated approach

Weight care project: health professionals\u27 attitudes and ability to assess body weight status - study protocol

Background: Health professionals working in primary care and public health have opportunities to address body weight status issues with their patients through face-to-face contact. The objectives of this all-Ireland project are: 1. to assess the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of key health professional groups on body weight status; 2. to assess the health professional groups\u27 ability to identify body weight status in both adults and children. The health professional groups are: (a) community related public health nurses; (b) school public health nurses; (c) GPs and practice nurses (primary care); and (d) occupational health nurses (workplace) from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Methods/Design: This all-Ireland multi-disciplinary project follows a mixed methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and consists of four components: 1. Literature review - to explore the role of health professionals in managing obesity through spontaneous intervention in a variety of health promotion settings. 2. Telephone interviews and focus groups - to gain an in-depth insight into the views of health professionals in assessing body weight status. 3. Survey (primarily online but also paper-based) - to determine the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of health professionals in assessing body weight status. 4. Online evaluation study - an online interactive programme will be developed to assess health professionals\u27 ability to identify the body weight status of adults and children. Discussion: This project will assess and report the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of key health professional groups within Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on body weight status, and their ability to identify body weight status in both adults and children. The results of this project will generate recommendations for clinical practice in managing obesity, which may inform policy guidelines

A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication

BACKGROUND: There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research. OBJECTIVE: To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to provide recommendations for future health communication research. METHODS: This paper is a review using a systematic approach. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using nine electronic databases and manual searches to locate peer-reviewed studies published between January 2002 and February 2012. RESULTS: The search identified 98 original research studies that included the uses, benefits, and/or limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals. The methodological quality of the studies assessed using the Downs and Black instrument was low; this was mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of the studies in this review included limited methodologies and was mainly exploratory and descriptive in nature. Seven main uses of social media for health communication were identified, including focusing on increasing interactions with others, and facilitating, sharing, and obtaining health messages. The six key overarching benefits were identified as (1) increased interactions with others, (2) more available, shared, and tailored information, (3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information, (4) peer/social/emotional support, (5) public health surveillance, and (6) potential to influence health policy. Twelve limitations were identified, primarily consisting of quality concerns and lack of reliability, confidentiality, and privacy. CONCLUSIONS: Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes. Social media is a powerful tool, which offers collaboration between users and is a social interaction mechanism for a range of individuals. Although there are several benefits to the use of social media for health communication, the information exchanged needs to be monitored for quality and reliability, and the users’ confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained. Eight gaps in the literature and key recommendations for future health communication research were provided. Examples of these recommendations include the need to determine the relative effectiveness of different types of social media for health communication using randomized control trials and to explore potential mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing the quality and reliability of health communication using social media. Further robust and comprehensive evaluation and review, using a range of methodologies, are required to establish whether social media improves health communication practice both in the short and long terms