To whom do we communicate? stage tailoring and framing of health messages in the promotion of fruit and vegetable intake

As campanhas de saúde são amplamente utilizadas para persuadir as pessoas a adoptarem estilos de vida saudáveis, incluindo o consumo de frutas e vegetais. O principal objectivo desta tese foi identificar os mecanismos pelos quais preditores sócio-cognitivos afectam o consumo de frutas e vegetais, utilizando esse conhecimento, e teoria, para o desenvolvimento de mensagens de saúde, avaliando a sua eficácia na promoção deste comportamento. Realizaram-se quatro estudos, descritos em cinco capítulos. As hipóteses formuladas sustentam-se no modelo Health Action Process Approach (Schwarzer, 2008) e na literatura sobre enquadramento de mensagens. Nos estudos descritos nos capítulos 2 e 3 verificou-se a utilidade teórica do modelo para este comportamento e selecionaram-se as crenças mais relevantes para cada constructo, a fim de desenvolver mensagens dirigidas a pessoas em diferentes estádios de mudança. No capítulo 4, demonstrou-se a superioridade de mensagens adequadas ao estádio na promoção da auto-eficácia entre pessoas num estádio não-intencional e intencional, e da intenção e progressão de estádio entre não-intencionais, sustentando a validade dos estádios. Os estudos apresentados nos capítulos 5 e 6, demonstraram o valor da adequação entre o enquadramento da mensagem e a orientação motivacional e as intenções dos destinatários, o qual mostrou variar consoante a qualidade percebida da mensagem. Os contributos aplicados apoiam o uso de teorias psicológicas no desenvolvimento de mensagens de saúde e a adaptação do seu conteúdo e enquadramento de acordo com o estádio de mudança e/ou orientação motivacional da audiência, para maior eficácia na promoção de mudanças nos comportamentos de saúde.Health communication campaigns are ubiquitous in the endeavor of persuading people to adopt healthier lifestyles, including fruit and vegetable intake. The central aim of this dissertation was to identify relevant mechanisms by which key psychological antecedents affect fruit and vegetable intake, using this knowledge and theory to inform the design of health messages, and evaluating their effectiveness in promoting this health behavior. We conducted four studies, which are described in five chapters. The theoretical underpinning of our hypotheses was based on the Health Action Process Approach (Schwarzer, 2008), and on the literature on health message framing. The studies described on chapters 2 and 3 allowed to verify the theoretical model utility in predicting fruit and vegetable intake, and to select relevant beliefs under the theoretical constructs for the development of health messages targeted at people in different stages of change. The study described on chapter 4 demonstrated the superiority of staged-matched health messages for instilling self-efficacy among non-intenders and intenders, and intention and stage progression for non-intenders, supporting the validity of stage assumptions. The two other studies, presented in chapters 5 and 6 demonstrated the value of matching the frame to the recipients´ motivational orientation and baseline intentions, which was shown to vary according to the perceived message quality. The applied contributions support the use of psychological theories for the development of health messages, and matching their content and frame to the recipient stage and/or motivational orientation for increased effectiveness in promoting health behavior change

Gain framing increases support for measures promoting plant-based eating in university settings

Global concerns with public health, animal suffering, and environmental problems linked to meat-centric diets have increased over the last decade. One way to help address these concerns is to implement measures that reduce meat consumption and increase plant-based eating in collective meal contexts, such as catering services in schools and universities. The present study provides insight into how consumers may react to these measures. A simple experiment (within-subjects design; N = 295) tested whether framing a set of plant-forward measures in terms of gain (i.e., measures to promote or increase the consumption of plant-based meals) or loss (i.e., measures to curtail or reduce the consumption of meals with meat) impacted consumer support for these measures in university settings. The results showed that consumer support was higher for gain-framed measures compared to loss-framed measures. Furthermore, the impact of framing was higher for measures focusing on sensory cues (e.g., make plant-based meals tastier and more appealing vs. make meals with meat less tasty and less appealing) and lower for measures focusing on behavioral constraints (e.g., serve only plant-based meals vs. do not serve meals with meat). Overall, the findings suggest that framing plant-forward measures in terms of gain can be a simple and potentially effective way to increase consumer support for food sustainability transitions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio