Adapting the ASSIST model of informal peer-led intervention delivery to the Talk to FRANK drug prevention programme in UK secondary schools (ASSIST + FRANK): intervention development, refinement and a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Illicit drug use increases the risk of poor physical and mental health. There are few effective drug prevention interventions. Objective: To assess the acceptability of implementing and trialling two school-based peer-led drug prevention interventions. Design: Stage 1 – adapt ASSIST, an effective peer-led smoking prevention intervention to deliver information from the UK national drug education website [see www.talktofrank.com (accessed 29 August 2017)]. Stage 2 – deliver the two interventions, ASSIST + FRANK (+FRANK) and FRANK friends, examine implementation and refine content. Stage 3 – four-arm pilot cluster randomised control trial (cRCT) of +FRANK, FRANK friends, ASSIST and usual practice, including a process evaluation and an economic assessment. Setting: Fourteen secondary schools (two in stage 2) in South Wales, UK. Participants: UK Year 8 students aged 12–13 years at baseline. Interventions: +FRANK is a UK informal peer-led smoking prevention intervention provided in Year 8 followed by a drug prevention adjunct provided in Year 9. FRANK friends is a standalone informal peer-led drug prevention intervention provided in Year 9. These interventions are designed to prevent illicit drug use through training influential students to disseminate information on the risks associated with drugs and minimising harms using content from www.talktofrank.com. Training is provided off site and follow-up visits are made in school. Outcomes: Stage 1 – +FRANK and FRANK friends intervention manuals and resources. Stage 2 – information on the acceptability and fidelity of delivery of the interventions for refining manuals and resources. Stage 3 – (a) acceptability of the interventions according to prespecified criteria; (b) qualitative data from students, staff, parents and intervention teams on implementation and receipt of the interventions; (c) comparison of the interventions; and (d) recruitment and retention rates, completeness of primary, secondary and intermediate outcome measures and estimation of costs. Results: +FRANK and FRANK friends were developed with stakeholders [young people, teachers (school management team and other roles), parents, ASSIST trainers, drug agency staff and a public health commissioner] over an 18-month period. In the stage 2 delivery of +FRANK, 12 out of the 14 peer supporters attended the in-person follow-ups but only one completed the electronic follow-ups. In the pilot cRCT, 12 schools were recruited, randomised and retained. The student response rate at the 18-month follow-up was 93% (1460/1567 students). Over 80% of peer supporters invited were trained and reported conversations on drug use and contact with trainers. +FRANK was perceived less positively than FRANK friends. The prevalence of lifetime illicit drug use was 4.1% at baseline and 11.6% at follow-up, with low numbers of missing data for all outcomes. The estimated cost per school was £1942 for +FRANK and £3041 for FRANK friends. All progression criteria were met. Conclusions: Both interventions were acceptable to students, teachers and parents, but FRANK friends was preferred to +FRANK. A limitation of the study was that qualitative data were collected on a self-selecting sample. Future work recommendations include progression to a Phase III effectiveness trial of FRANK friends. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN14415936. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme and will be published in full in Public Health Research; Vol. 5, No. 7. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information. The work was undertaken with the support of the Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer). Joint funding (MR/KO232331/1) from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Welsh Government and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK CRC, is gratefully acknowledged

Comparison of sociodemographic and health-related characteristics of UK Biobank participants with the general population

UK Biobank is a population-based cohort of 500,000 participants recruited between 2006 and 2010. Approximately 9.2 million individuals aged 40-69 years who lived within 25 miles of the 22 assessment centres in England, Wales and Scotland were invited, and 5.4% participated in the baseline assessment. The representativeness of the UK Biobank cohort was investigated by comparing demographic characteristics between non-responders and responders. Sociodemographic, physical, lifestyle and health-related characteristics of the cohort were compared with nationally representative data sources. UK Biobank participants were more likely to be older, women and to live in less socioeconomically deprived areas than non-participants. Compared with the general population, participants were less likely to be obese, smoke, drink alcohol on a daily basis and had fewer self-reported health outcomes. Rates of all-cause mortality and total cancer incidence (at age 70-74 years) were 46.2% and 11.8% lower in men, and 55.5% and 18.1% lower in women, respectively, than the general population of the same age. UK Biobank is not representative of the sampling population, with evidence of a ‘healthy volunteer’ selection bias. Nonetheless, the valid assessment of exposure-disease relationships may be widely generalizable and does not require participants to be representative of the population at large

During the last decades the interest to analyse innovation activity as a source of competitive advantage has increased and several authors have researched how certain firm characteristics encourage or impinge on the innovation process

Abstract This study analyses the additionality effects of R&D subsidies on the firms' innovation activity, specifically on the way firms allocate their in-house R&D expenditures and on the economic returns of the innovation process. The magnitude of these effects have been established by taking into consideration the size of the firm, since it is a widely used variable in designing innovation policies. Our study has revealed that public funding, regardless of size, mainly stimulated investments aimed at gaining knowledge within the firm's technological domain (applied research and technological development), while it did not expand the technological knowledge frontier (basic research). The findings also show that R&D subsidies have different additionality effects on the economic returns derived from the innovation process. Although, small subsidised firms increased their private R&D effort quite significantly, they only managed to achieve an increase in the sale of products new for the firm. Meanwhile, large subsidised firms, which only increased their investments in technological development, managed to increase the sale of products new for the market

Incorporating Human-Computer Interaction and

This paper reports on the acceptance of a new medical records system and aims at demonstrating the methods used by the ARISTOPHANES system to cover usability and HCI aspect

Modelling the car market

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:9057.24(TRRL-LR--1116) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Cycle theft

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:9057.24(TRRL-LR--1134) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Quand le droit efface une religion

A partir d’une analyse contemporaine de droit européen comparé, la contribution dresse une typologie critique des discours judiciaires qui rendent compte ou contribuent normativement ou symboliquement à l’affaissement d’une religion ou d’une philosophie de vie. Une première partie s’intéresse au traitement juridique comparé de faits « non controversés » d’affaissement d’une religion (désaffectation de lieux, disparition du personnel sacré, abandon de l’éducation religieuse ou convictionnelle des enfants, désymbolisations, etc). Une seconde partie est consacrée aux discours judiciaires comme injonction normative (factuelle ou virtuelle) renforçant, accélérant ou ralentissant la terminaison d’une religion ou d’une communauté donnée (condamnation d’une pratique ou d’une doctrine tenue pour centrale, banalisation, perte de compréhension commune, « invisibilisation » juridique etc). Sous forme de conclusion, une troisième partie s’interroge sur les liens juridiques entre terminaison d’une religion donnée versus terminaison du fait religieux comme réalité sociale, comme catégorie du sens courant ou comme qualification juridique