Chinese university students’ preferences for physical activity incentive programs: a discrete choice experiment

PurposeThis study aims to explore and compare Chinese university students’ preferences for various physical activity motivation programs.Patients and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in China from February 25 to March 25, 2022. Participants anonymously completed an online questionnaire based on a DCE. A total of 1,358 university students participated in the survey. The conditional logit model (CLM), willingness to accept (WTA), and propensity score matching (PSM) were used to assess college students’ preferences for different attributes and levels of physical activity incentive programs.ResultsRespondents identified the number of bonus, exercise time, and academic rewards as the three most significant attributes of the athletic incentive program. The importance of each attribute varied based on individual characteristics such as gender and BMI. In CLM, college students displayed a preference for a “¥4” bonus amount (OR: 2.04, 95% CI 1.95–2.13), “20 min” of exercise time (OR: 1.85, 95% CI 1.79–1.92), and “bonus points for comprehensive test scores” as academic rewards (OR: 1.33, 95% CI 1.28–1.37). According to the WTA results, college students were willing to accept the highest cost to obtain academic rewards tied to composite test scores.ConclusionThe number of bonus, exercise time, and academic rewards emerge as the three most crucial attributes of physical activity incentive programs. Furthermore, college students with different characteristics exhibit heterogeneity in their preferences for such programs. These findings can guide the development of programs and policies aimed at motivating college students to engage in physical activities

Self-Medication Behaviors of Chinese Residents and Consideration Related to Drug Prices and Medical Insurance Reimbursement When Self-Medicating: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Self-medication has become a common phenomenon. Economic factors are important factors that affect the self-medication of residents. This study aimed to investigate the current status of self-medication behaviors in China and explored the related factors affecting considerations associated with medical insurance reimbursement or drug price in self-medication. Methods: A national cross-sectional investigation was conducted among Chinese people over 18 years old under a multi-stage sampling method through a questionnaire, which includes demographic sociological characteristics, self-medication behaviors and scales. The Chi-square test was used to analyze whether the respondents consider medical insurance reimbursement or drug price as an important factor when purchasing over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Logistic regression was used to examine the associated factors of considering medical insurance reimbursement or drug price. Results: In total, 9256 respondents were included in this study; 37.52% of the respondents regarded drug prices as an important consideration, and 28.53% of the respondents attached great importance to medical insurance reimbursement. Elderly respondents who lived in the central region, had medical insurance, and had lower levels of health literacy were more likely to consider the medical insurance reimbursement, while respondents with high monthly family income as well as students were less likely to consider the same issue (p < 0.05). Respondents settled in the central and western regions, students, those without fixed occupations, those who suffered from chronic diseases, or those with lower health literacy were more likely to consider drug prices, while the respondents with bachelor degrees, urban population and high per capita monthly income were less likely to consider the drug prices (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Self-medication behaviors with OTC drugs were prevalent in China, and consideration factors of medical insurance reimbursement or drug prices were related to socio-demographic characteristics and health literacy. There is a need to take measures to reduce the economic burden of self-medication, improve the health literacy of residents and strengthen public health education

The evolving privacy and security concerns for genomic data analysis and sharing as observed from the iDASH competition

Concerns regarding inappropriate leakage of sensitive personal information as well as unauthorized data use are increasing with the growth of genomic data repositories. Therefore, privacy and security of genomic data have become increasingly important and need to be studied. With many proposed protection techniques, their applicability in support of biomedical research should be well understood. For this purpose, we have organized a community effort in the past 8 years through the integrating data for analysis, anonymization and sharing consortium to address this practical challenge. In this article, we summarize our experience from these competitions, report lessons learned from the events in 2020/2021 as examples, and discuss potential future research directions in this emerging field