Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

Background: This article describes the procedures and development of the rst Portuguese Report Card on Physical Activity in Children and Adolescents. Methods: Comprehensive searches for data related to indicators of physical activity (PA) were completed by a committee of physical activity and sports specialists. Grades were assigned to each indicator consistent with the process and methodology outlined by the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card model. Results: Nine indicators of PA were graded. The following grades were assigned: Overall Physical Activity Levels, D; Organized Sport Participation, B; Active Play, D; Active Transportation, C; Sedentary Behaviors, D; Family and Peers, C; Schools, B; Community and the Built Environment, D; and Government, C. Conclusions: Portuguese children and adolescents do not reach suf cient physical activity levels and spend larger amounts of time spent in sedentary behaviors compared with recommendations. Effective policies of PA promotion and implementation are needed in different domains of young people’s daily lives

Abdominal obesity in adolescents: Development of age-specific waist circumference cut-offs linked to adult IDF criteria

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to develop age- and sex-specific waist cir-cumference (WC) cut-off points, linked to older adolescent and adult criteria forabdominal obesity, to be applied to children in the clinical setting.Methods: A total of 16,788 adolescents aged 10 to 16 years were assessed for WC.Smoothed age and sex-specific WC curves were obtained using Cole’s LMS method.Results: Percentiles that corresponded to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF)recommendations used for older adolescents and adults (161 years old) were the97thpercentile for boys and the 87thpercentile for girls. Using these cutoffs, a total of368 boys and 1138 girls were categorized as abdominally obese, in contrast to 1654boys and 987 girls that were identified using the current IDF pediatric criteria (90thpercentile).Conclusions: We provide age- and sex-specific cut-off points that can be used toidentify abdominal obesity in adolescents. The present findings provide a tool thatcan be used in the clinical setting for the early detection and prevention of adult obe-sity. Population-specific cutoffs may be required for pediatric ages to diagnosechildren at risk

Results from Portugal’s 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

Available evidence indicates that there are still a large proportion of Portuguese children and adolescents that are not sufficiently active and that exceed the recommended levels of screen-time. In Portugal, virtually all students, enrolled in formal education, attain regular Physical Education classes, which is of significance

Guernsey voluntary and charitable sector research study

The study‘s focus was on social inclusion, and how voluntary and charitable organisations try to overcome the barriers and inequalities which prevent people participating on equal terms in society. Its aim was to identify gaps in provision and ways to fill them. Its methodology included a literature review, focus groups and a questionnaire.The report reviews literature and research, from the UK and Europe as well as Guernsey, on social exclusion, social inclusion, the voluntary sector and its changing relationship with the statutory sector. Some of the themes of this broader review are reflected in the findings of the study of the VCS in Guernsey.Most households in Guernsey are not at risk of becoming poor in the near future, but the 2007 Household Expenditure Survey indicated that 16.6% of respondents lived in households with an income below 60% of median income. Those most affected by poverty are lone parent households, single pensioner households and households with children. This means poorer diet, worse health and housing, greater vulnerability to crime and less social support

Domestic violence and mental health: a cross-sectional survey of women seeking help from domestic violence support services

Background : Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are associated with an increased risk of mental illness, but we know little about the mental health of female DVA survivors seeking support from domestic violence services. Objective : To characterize the demography and mental health of women who access specialist DVA services in the United Kingdom and to investigate associations between severity of abuse and measures of mental health and health state utility, accounting for important confounders and moderators. Design : Baseline data on 260 women enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of a psychological intervention for DVA survivors was analyzed. We report prevalence of and associations between mental health status and severity of abuse at the time of recruitment. We used logistic and normal regression models for binary and continuous outcomes, respectively. Mental health measures used were: Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation–Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment, and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) to measure posttraumatic stress disorder. The Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) measured abuse. Results : Exposure to DVA was high, with a mean CAS score of 56 (SD 34). The mean CORE-OM score was 18 (SD 8) with 76% above the clinical threshold (95% confidence interval: 70–81%). Depression and anxiety levels were high, with means close to clinical thresholds, and all respondents recorded PTSD scores above the clinical threshold. Symptoms of mental illness increased stepwise with increasing severity of DVA. Conclusions : Women DVA survivors who seek support from DVA services have recently experienced high levels of abuse, depression, anxiety, and especially PTSD. Clinicians need to be aware that patients presenting with mental health conditions or symptoms of depression or anxiety may be experiencing or may have experienced DVA. The high psychological morbidity in this population means that trauma-informed psychological support is needed for survivors who seek support from DVA services. Keywords : domestic violence and abuse; intimate partner violence; mental health; posttraumatic stress disorder; anxiety; CORE-OM; depression; women; advocacy (Published: 15 October 2014) Citation : Glob Health Action 2014,  7 : 25519 -  http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.25519 SPECIAL ISSUE : This paper is part of the Special Issue:  Intimate Partner Violence and Mental Health . More papers from this issue can be found at  http://www.globalhealthaction.net SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL : To access the supplementary material for this article, please see  Supplementary files  under Article Tool

L2F/INESC-ID at SemEval-2019 Task 2: unsupervised lexical semantic frame induction using contextualized word representations

Building large datasets annotated with semantic information, such as FrameNet, is an expensive process. Consequently, such resources are unavailable for many languages and specific domains. This problem can be alleviated by using unsupervised approaches to induce the frames evoked by a collection of documents. That is the objective of the second task of SemEval 2019, which comprises three subtasks: clustering of verbs that evoke the same frame and clustering of arguments into both frame-specific slots and semantic roles. We approach all the subtasks by applying a graph clustering algorithm on contextualized embedding representations of the verbs and arguments. Using such representations is appropriate in the context of this task, since they provide cues for word-sense disambiguation. Thus, they can be used to identify different frames evoked by the same words. Using this approach we were able to outperform all of the baselines reported for the task on the test set in terms of Purity F1, as well as in terms of BCubed F1 in most cases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Predicted VO2 on 6 minutes walk test for FAP liver transplanted patients

Physical function is limited post-liver transplantation and exercise training can improve exercise capacity following transplantation but previously assessment of functional capacity is necessary. The 6 minute walk test (6MWT) is routinely used for studying patient’s exercise capacity and is less expensive and time consuming than a Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test (CPXT). There have been some studies looking at the relationship between 6MWT and peak VO2 in patients but few presented an adequate equation for predicted peak VO2 from 6MWT to transplanted patients and none for Familial Amyloidotic Polyneuropathy (FAP) liver transplanted patients (FAPTx). The aim of this study was to compare the validity of 6 equations as predictors of VO2 from the 6MWT and compare it with directly measured VO2 in patients FAPTx

Psychological advocacy towards healing (PATH): A randomized controlled trial of a psychological intervention in a domestic violence service setting

Background Experience of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is associated with mental illness. Advocacy has little effect on mental health outcomes of female DVA survivors and there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of psychological interventions for this population. Objective To test effectiveness of a psychological intervention delivered by advocates to DVA survivors. Design, masking, setting, participants Pragmatic parallel group individually randomized controlled trial of normal DVA advocacy vs. advocacy + psychological intervention. Statistician and researchers blinded to group assignment. Setting: specialist DVA agencies; two UK cities. Participants: Women aged 16 years and older accessing DVA services. Intervention Eight specialist psychological advocacy (SPA) sessions with two follow up sessions. Measurements Primary outcomes at 12 months: depression symptoms (PHQ-9) and psychological distress (CORE-OM). Primary analysis: intention to treat linear (logistic) regression model for continuous (binary) outcomes. Results 263 women recruited (78 in shelter/refuge, 185 in community), 2 withdrew (1 community, control group; 1 intervention, refuge group), 1 was excluded from the study for protocol violation (community, control group), 130 in intervention and 130 in control groups. Recruitment ended June 2013. 12-month follow up: 64%. At 12-month follow up greater improvement in mental health of women in the intervention group. Difference in average CORE-OM score between intervention and control groups: -3.3 points (95% CI -5.5 to -1.2). Difference in average PHQ-9 score between intervention and control group: -2.2 (95% CI -4.1 to -0.3). At 12 months, 35% of the intervention group and 55% of the control group were above the CORE-OM -2clinical threshold (OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.64); 29% of the intervention group and 46% of the control group were above the PHQ-9 clinical threshold (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.81). Limitations 64% retention at 12 months Conclusions An eight-session psychological intervention delivered by DVA advocates produced clinically relevant improvement in mental health outcomes compared with normal advocacy care. Trial registration ISRCTN registry ISRCTN58561170 Original Research 3675/375

Predicting short-term weight loss using four leading health behavior change theories

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study was conceived to analyze how exercise and weight management psychosocial variables, derived from several health behavior change theories, predict weight change in a short-term intervention. The theories under analysis were the Social Cognitive Theory, the Transtheoretical Model, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Self-Determination Theory.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Subjects were 142 overweight and obese women (BMI = 30.2 ± 3.7 kg/m²; age = 38.3 ± 5.8y), participating in a 16-week University-based weight control program. Body weight and a comprehensive psychometric battery were assessed at baseline and at program's end.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Weight decreased significantly (-3.6 ± 3.4%, p < .001) but with great individual variability. Both exercise and weight management psychosocial variables improved during the intervention, with exercise-related variables showing the greatest effect sizes. Weight change was significantly predicted by each of the models under analysis, particularly those including self-efficacy. Bivariate and multivariate analyses results showed that change in variables related to weight management had a stronger predictive power than exercise-specific predictors and that change in weight management self-efficacy was the strongest individual correlate (p < .05). Among exercise predictors, with the exception of self-efficacy, importance/effort and intrinsic motivation towards exercise were the stronger predictors of weight reduction (p < .05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present models were able to predict 20–30% of variance in short-term weight loss and changes in weight management self-efficacy accounted for a large share of the predictive power. As expected from previous studies, exercise variables were only moderately associated with short-term outcomes; they are expected to play a larger explanatory role in longer-term results.</p

Who will lose weight? A reexamination of predictors of weight loss in women

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to analyze pretreatment predictors of short-term weight loss in Portuguese overweight and obese women involved in a weight management program. Behavioral and psychosocial predictors were selected a priori from previous results reported in American women who participated in a similar program. METHODS: Subjects were 140 healthy overweight/obese women (age, 38.3 ± 5.9 y; BMI, 30.3 ± 3.7 kg/m(2)) who participated in a 4-month lifestyle weight loss program consisting of group-based behavior therapy to improve diet and increase physical activity. At baseline, all women completed a comprehensive behavioral and psychosocial battery, in standardized conditions. RESULTS: Of all starting participants, 3.5% (5 subjects) did not finish the program. By treatment's end, more than half of all women had met the recomended weight loss goals, despite a large variability in individual results (range for weight loss = 19 kg). In bivariate and multivariate correlation/regression analysis fewer previous diets and weight outcome evaluations, and to a lesser extent self-motivation and body image were significant and independent predictors of weight reduction, before and after adjustment for baseline weight. A negative and slightly curvilinear relationship best described the association between outcome evaluations and weight change, revealing that persons with very accepting evaluations (that would accept or be happy with minimal weight change) lost the least amount of weight while positive but moderate evaluations of outcomes (i.e., neither low nor extremely demanding) were more predictive of success. Among those subjects who reported having initiated more than 3–4 diets in the year before the study, very few were found to be in the most successful group after treatment. Quality of life, self-esteem, and exercise variables did not predict outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Several variables were confirmed as predictors of success in short-term weight loss and can be used in future hypothesis-testing studies and as a part of more evolved prediction models. Previous dieting, and pretreatment self-motivation and body image are associated with subsequent weight loss, in agreement with earlier findings in previous samples. Weight outcome evaluations appear to display a more complex relationship with treatment results and culture-specific factors may be useful in explaining this pattern of association