Hamara Healthy Living Centre - an evaluation

Hamara is a Healthy Living Centre which aims to improve health and well-being through providing a range of culturally appropriate activities and services. Hamara has a vision of 'bringing communities together' and since it was established in 2004, the Centre has provided a valuable community resource in South Leeds. Partnership work between Hamara and Leeds Met goes back to 2002. In 2007, the Centre for Health Promotion Research carried out an evaluation of Hamara in partnership with Hamara staff and Leeds Met Community Partnerships and Volunteering. This was followed by a highly successful community cohesion conference 'One Community' which was held at Hamara on 10th October 2008, and was supported through a Leeds Met public engagement grant. The event attracted over a hundred people from diverse communities and organisations across Leeds. A packed audience heard Hilary Benn, local MP and Patron of Hamara, talk about the importance of working in collaboration around community cohesion. Jane South, Centre for Health Promotion Research, presented the main evaluation results and set out the some challenges for the future. The proceedings concluded with the presentation of awards to a number of for local community champions who work to bring people together and make a real difference in the city of Leeds

Infrared laser pulse triggers increased singlet oxygen production in tumour cells

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a technique developed to treat the ever-increasing global incidence of cancer. This technique utilises singlet oxygen (1O2) generation via a laser excited photosensitiser (PS) to kill cancer cells. However, prolonged sensitivity to intensive light (6–8 weeks for lung cancer), relatively low tissue penetration by activating light (630 nm up to 4 mm), and the cost of PS administration can limit progressive PDT applications. The development of quantum-dot laser diodes emitting in the highest absorption region (1268 nm) of triplet oxygen (3O2) presents the possibility of inducing apoptosis in tumour cells through direct 3O2 → 1O2 transition. Here we demonstrate that a single laser pulse triggers dose-dependent 1O2 generation in both normal keratinocytes and tumour cells and show that tumour cells yield the highest 1O2 far beyond the initial laser pulse exposure. Our modelling and experimental results support the development of direct infrared (IR) laser-induced tumour treatment as a promising approach in tumour PDT

Improving health and well-being through community health champions: a thematic evaluation of a programme in Yorkshire and Humber.

AIMS: The contribution that lay people can make to the public health agenda is being increasingly recognised in research and policy literature. This paper examines the role of lay workers (referred to as 'community health champions') involved in community projects delivered by Altogether Better across Yorkshire and Humber. The aim of the paper is to describe key features of the community health champion approach and to examine the evidence that this type of intervention can have an impact on health. METHODS: A qualitative approach was taken to the evaluation, with two strands to gathering evidence: interviews conducted with different stakeholder groups including project leads, key partners from community and statutory sectors and community workers, plus two participatory workshops to gather the views of community health champions. Seven projects (from a possible 12) were identified to be involved in the evaluation. Those projects that allowed the evaluation team to explore fully the champion role (training, infrastructure, etc.) and how that works in practice as a mechanism for empowerment were selected. In total, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with project staff and partners, and 30 champions, varying in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and disability, took part in the workshops. RESULTS: Becoming a community health champion has health benefits such as increased self-esteem and confidence and improved well-being. For some champions, this was the start of a journey to other opportunities such as education or paid employment. There were many examples of the influence of champions extending to the wider community of family, friends and neighbours, including helping to support people to take part in community life. Champions recognised the value of connecting people through social networks, group activities, and linking people into services and the impact that that had on health and well-being. Project staff and partners also recognised that champions were promoting social cohesiveness and helping to integrate people into their community. CONCLUSIONS: The recent public health White Paper suggested that the Altogether Better programme is improving individual and community health as well as increasing social capital, voluntary activity and wider civic participation. This evaluation supports this statement and suggests that the community health champion role can be a catalyst for change for both individuals and communities

A discrete slug population model determined by egg production

Slugs are significant pests in agriculture (as well as a nuisance to gardeners), and it is therefore important to understand their population dynamics for the construction of efficient and effective control measures. Differential equation models of slug populations require the inclusion of large (variable) temporal delays, and strong seasonal forcing results in a non-autonomous system. This renders such models open to only a limited amount of rigorous analysis. In this paper, we derive a novel batch model based purely upon the quantity of eggs produced at different times of the year. This model is open to considerable reduction; from the resulting two variable discrete-time system it is possible to reconstruct the dynamics of the full population across the year and give conditions for extinction or global stability and persistence. Furthermore, the steady state temporal population distribution displays qualitatively different behavior with only small changes in the survival probability of slugs. The model demonstrates how small variations in the favorability of different years may result in widely different slug population fluctuations between consecutive years, and is in good agreement with field data

Can health trainers make a difference with difficult-to-engage clients? A multisite case study

A political attempt in the United Kingdom to address health inequalities in the past decade has been the government’s initiative to employ local health trainers (HTs) or health trainer champions (HTCs) to support disadvantaged individuals with aspects of their health-related behaviors. HT/HTCs provide health-related information and support to individuals with healthy eating, physical activity, and smoking cessation. They undertake community engagement and direct individuals to relevant health services. They differ in that HTs are trained to provide health interventions to individuals or groups and to make referrals to specialist health care services when necessary. This article provides an evaluation of HT/HTCs interventions across three sites, including one prison, one probation service (three teams), and one mental health center. An evaluation framework combining process and outcome measures was employed that used mixed methods to capture data relating to the implementation of the service, including the context of the HT/HTCs interventions, the reactions of their clients, and the outcomes reported. It was found that HT/HTCs interventions were more effective in the prison and mental health center compared with the probation site largely as a result of contextual factors

The GOAL study: a prospective examination of the impact of factor V Leiden and ABO(H) blood groups on haemorrhagic and thrombotic pregnancy outcomes

Factor V Leiden (FVL) and ABO(H) blood groups are the common influences on haemostasis and retrospective studies have linked FVL with pregnancy complications. However, only one sizeable prospective examination has taken place. As a result, neither the impact of FVL in unselected subjects, any interaction with ABO(H) in pregnancy, nor the utility of screening for FVL is defined. A prospective study of 4250 unselected pregnancies was carried out. A venous thromboembolism (VTE) rate of 1·23/1000 was observed, but no significant association between FVL and pre-eclampsia, intra-uterine growth restriction or pregnancy loss was seen. No influence of FVL and/or ABO(H) on ante-natal bleeding or intra-partum or postpartum haemorrhage was observed. However, FVL was associated with birth-weights >90th centile [odds ratio (OR) 1·81; 95% confidence interval (CI<sub>95</sub>) 1·04–3·31] and neonatal death (OR 14·79; CI<sub>95</sub> 2·71–80·74). No association with ABO(H) alone, or any interaction between ABO(H) and FVL was observed. We neither confirmed the protective effect of FVL on pregnancy-related blood loss reported in previous smaller studies, nor did we find the increased risk of some vascular complications reported in retrospective studies