Interest In Health Research Articles

Amalgamation of Technology Adoption Model (TAM) and Conjoint Analysis to Understand Consumers’ Perception of Wearable Health-Tech Devices

Wearable health-tech devices (WHTD) are increasingly used by individuals for early identification of symptoms and treatment. This study investigates the factors influencing consumers' attitudes and intentions towards adopting WHTD in the southern states of India. The research study uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and conjoint analysis. Data was collected from 259 respondents through a structured questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was employed to analyze the data. The findings reveal that perceived benefits, technology characteristics, individual characteristics, health interests, and perceived risk significantly influence consumers' attitudes towards WHTD and their intention to adopt these devices. The conjoint analysis revealed that tracking heart rate, steps, and breathing were considered the most important attributes for a WHTD. The study provides valuable insights for marketers and developers to understand the drivers and preferences of consumers regarding WHTD, which can contribute to the design and promotion of innovative wearable healthcare technologies. This study used an amalgamation of the Technology Acceptance Model and Conjoint Analysis to understand the factors influencing the adoption of WHTD. The study further explores the combination of features that consumers prefer in these devices, which provides valuable insights into the design and manufacture of the WHTD.

Medical Decision-Making for Children in Families with Siblings: parental discretion and its limits.

This article examines how parents should make health decisions for one child when they may have a negative impact on the health interests or other interests of their siblings. The authors discuss three health decisions made by the parents of Alex Jones, a child with developmental disabilities with two older neurotypical siblings over the course of eight years. First, Alex's parents must decide whether to conduct sequencing on his siblings to help determine if there is a genetic cause for Alex's developmental disabilities. Second, Alex's parents must decide whether to move to another town to maximize the therapy options for Alex. Third, Alex's parents must decide whether to authorize the collection of stem cells from Alex for a bone marrow transplant for his sibling who developed leukemia. We examine whether the consensus recommendations by Salter and colleagues (2023) regarding pediatric decision-making apply in families with more than one child.

Professionals' experiences of what affects health outcomes in the sick leave and rehabilitation process-A qualitative study from primary care level.

To explore frontline employees' experiences of how to create a purposeful sick leave and rehabilitation process (SRP) with the best interest of patients' long-term health in focus. Qualitative design based on focus group interviews in a primary care context in Region Västra Götaland, Sweden. Strategically selected professionals from different SRP organizations discussed sick leave outcomes and the rehabilitation process. Analysis was performed with Systematic text condensation. General practitioners (n = 6), rehabilitation coordinators and/or healthcare professionals from primary healthcare (n = 13), caseworkers from the Social Insurance Agency, the Employment Agency, and Social Services (n = 12). The outcome of the SRP was described to depend upon the extent to which the process meets patients' bio-psycho-social needs. Aspects considered crucial were: 1) early bio-psycho-social assessments, including medical specialist consultations when needed, 2) long-term realistic planning of sick leave and rehabilitation alongside medical treatment, 3) access to a wide range of early rehabilitative and supportive interventions, including situation-based, non-medical practical problem solving, and 4) trusting relationships over time for all involved professions and roles to maximize process quality and person-centeredness. A gap between the desired scope of the SRP and existing guidelines was identified. Interviewees perceived that successful outcomes from the sick leave and rehabilitation process in a primary care context depend on consensus, person-centeredness, and relationship continuity for all involved professions. An extended process scope and relationship continuity for all involved professionals were suggested to improve process outcomes.

Midlife Women's Menopausal Transition Symptom Experience and Access to Medical and Integrative Health Care: Informing the Development of MENOGAP.

Individuals with a uterus experience menopause, the cessation of menses, on average at age 51 years in the United States. While menopause is a natural occurrence for most, over 85% of women experience multiple interfering symptoms. Menopausal women face health disparities, including a lack of access to high-quality healthcare and greater disparities are experienced by women who are black, indigenous, and people of color. Some women are turning away from hormone therapy, and some seek integrative health interventions. Some menopausal women who seek healthcare do not receive it as they lack access to medical and integrative healthcare providers. A potential solution to this problem is a medical group visit (MGV), during which a provider sees multiple patients at once. The aims of this study were to gather women's opinions about the menopause, provider access, and conventional and integrative health interventions for later use to develop a menopause MGV. We conducted a Community Engagement Session and a Return of Results (RoR) with midlife women to learn about their menopause experiences, barriers and facilitators to accessing health providers, and their interest in and suggestions for designing a future integrative MGV (IMGV). Thematic qualitative research methods were used to summarize session results. Nine women participated in the Session and six attended the RoR. Participants were well-educated and diverse in race and ethnicity. Themes included: an interest in this topic; unfamiliar medical terms; relevant social factors; desired whole person care; interest in integrative health; barriers and facilitators to accessing healthcare. The group expressed interest in ongoing participation in the future process of adapting an IMGV, naming it MENOGAP. These findings highlight the importance of stakeholder engagement before designing and implementing MENOGAP and the great need among midlife women for education about the menopausal transition, integrative self-care, and healthcare.

Exploring power and power sharing in participatory health research partnerships: A scoping review protocol.

Participatory health research (PHR) as a research paradigm, guides the research process and strives to achieve positive change in society in the interest of people's health. In this scoping review, PHR will be used as an umbrella term considering a wide range of collaborative research approaches in the health context. PHR is conducted 'with' or 'by' those it intends to benefit, as opposed to 'on' and 'for' them. Their involvement throughout the research process seeks to shift power and decision-making from where they traditionally lay within academia toward community, patient and public end-users. Research cannot be truly participatory without concurrently addressing power dynamics within the partnership and power imbalances in decision making. Therefore, power sharing can be defined as a major factor in building effective academic-community collaborations. This scoping review aims to identify, clarify, and map existing literature on power and power sharing in PHR from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Specifically, we will explore how power is conceptualised throughout the literature, and how power and power sharing are applied and addressed in real-life PHR partnerships. This scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the guidelines outlined in the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Reviewer's Manual. This scoping review will consider both empirical and non-empirical research that report on understanding power and power sharing in participatory health research partnerships. All appropriate studies will be retrieved from the following five electronic databases: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, PsycINFO, SocIndex. This review will be limited to articles published in English and from January 1998 to March 2024. As the scoping review aims to capture more than peer-reviewed and published literature, it will also include grey literature such as theses and dissertations, reports, conference proceedings, and editorials. Data from the included literature will be extracted based on the data extraction tool, defined in advance. As primary data will not be collected, ethical approval is not required to conduct the scoping review. The findings of this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications.

The Legal Framework for Public-Private Partnerships in Drug R&D.

Public-private partnerships in drug R&D have great potential for driving innovation. They can bridge between excellent fundamental research and development and commercialization of innovative medicines to address unmet needs for the therapy of severe diseases in the interest of public health and human welfare. Therefore, public-private partnerships in drug R&D are promoted and publicly funded by governments and the European Commission. Nonetheless, they need to comply with legal requirements, particularly stemming from State aid law and competition law. Those requirements do not only protect a fair competition, but rather also further open information exchange as well as fair sharing of risks and fair participation in gains and results with the goal of having a successful collaboration and increasing the chance of successful commercialization of pharmaceutical innovations.

Rapid quantitative authentication and analysis of camellia oil adulterated with edible oils by electronic nose and FTIR spectroscopy

Camellia oil, recognized as a high-quality edible oil endorsed by the Food and Agriculture Organization, is confronted with authenticity issues arising from fraudulent adulteration practices. These practices not only pose health risks but also lead to economic losses. This study proposes a novel machine learning framework, referred to as a transformer encoder backbone with a support vector machine regressor (TES), coupled with an electronic nose (E-nose), for detecting varying adulteration levels in camellia oil. Experimental results indicate that the proposed TES model exhibits the best performance in identifying the adulterated concentration of camellia oi, compared with five other machine learning models (the support vector machine, random forest, XGBoost, K-nearest neighbors, and backpropagation neural network). The results obtained by E-nose detection are verified by complementary Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis for identifying functional groups, ensuring accuracy and providing a comprehensive assessment of the types of adulterants. The proposed TES model combined with E-nose offers a rapid, effective, and practical tool for detecting camellia oil adulteration. This technique not only safeguards consumer health and economic interests but also promotes the application of E-nose in market supervision.

Neutrosophic Sets in Investigating the Right to Genetic Information: A Study using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and D-OWA

This article provides a comprehensive view of the evolution and ethical implications of genetics, from its historical origins to modern advancements like the Human Genome Project. It emphasizes the importance of genetic information in disease prediction and understanding human diversity while highlighting the need to address associated ethical and privacy issues. It introduces Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) and the Dependent OWA (D-OWA) aggregation operator as innovative tools for analyzing the complex landscape of the Right to Genetic Information (RGI) in an international context, identifying key factors such as legal frameworks, technological advancements, access to health, culture, ethics, and commercial interests. The research reveals that while legal framework and technology are predominant, other factors also play significant roles in managing RGI. The application of D-OWA provides additional insights, confirming that conventional centrality assessments adequately reflect the priorities and influence of factors in RGI. It concludes by underlining the need for specific strategies to address these challenges, such as strengthening the legal framework, promoting ethics in genetics, improving public education, and respecting cultural diversity, to protect individual rights while leveraging the benefits of genetics for society.

Potential Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Career Aspirations of Prospective Students.

This article describes the evolving landscape of medical education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the renewed importance of public health, mental well-being, and career choices among medical students. The pandemic has prompted a significant shift in medical student's career aspirations, highlighting the need for mental health support mechanisms within the medical education framework. Medical students' career choices are influenced directly and indirectly by the challenges and experiences of the pandemic era, which are discussed in this article under four key themes: traditional values, global health interests and disparities, developing trends, and digital healthcare. There is an urgent need to adjust medical training to the new reality and share the future directions of the medical education landscape by embracing diverse career paths in medicine, integrating technology into medical training, adapting to the changing context of medicine, and strengthening collaboration and communication. The pandemic underscores the importance of evidence-based patient care, necessitating the preparation of tomorrow's doctors to address the emerging healthcare challenges with resilience, adaptability, and a comprehensive understanding of both local and global health challenges.

The Perils of Partnership: Interactions Between Public Health England, Drinkaware, and the Portman Group Surrounding the Drink Free Days Campaign.

There is growing evidence that the alcohol industry seeks to obstruct public health policies that might affect future alcohol sales. In parallel, the alcohol industry funds organisations that engage in "responsible drinking" campaigns. Evidence is growing that the content and delivery of such campaigns serves industry, rather than public health interests, yet these organizations continue to be the subject of partnerships with government health departments. This study aimed to examine the nature and potential impacts of such partnerships by analysing the practices of the alcohol industry-funded charity Drinkaware during the establishment of the Drink Free Days campaign. A case study based on an inductive analysis of documents revealed by freedom of information (FoI) request regarding communications between Drinkaware, Public Health England (PHE), and the Portman Group, in the years running up to, and during, the Drink Free Days campaign, a partnership between alcohol industry-funded charity Drinkware, and PHE. This study reveals a range of less visible, system-level effects of such partnerships for government departments and civil society. The tensions observed, as exhibited by discrepancies between internal and external communications, the emphasis on managing and mitigating the perception of negative consequences, and the links to wider alcohol industry initiatives and bodies, suggest the need for wider considerations of organizational conflicts of interest, and of possible indirect, harmful consequences to policy-making. These include the marginalization of other civil society voices, the displacing of more effective policy options, and strategic alignment with other industry lobbying activities. The findings have implications for how public health practitioners and health organisations might better weigh the potential trade-offs of partnership in the context of health promotion campaigns.

A Study on the Characteristics of Health Functional Food Use, Perceived Health Status, Health Interest, and Health Promotion Attitude among College Students

A Study on the Characteristics of Health Functional Food Use, Perceived Health Status, Health Interest, and Health Promotion Attitude among College Students

The Current Dilemma of Health Care Data Sharing in China and Its Legal Responses

Promoting the circulation and sharing of health care data is not only a practical necessity for the advancement of the digital economy, but also a key to achieving the strategic goals of China's health care development. However, the sharing and utilization of China's health care data still face a series of challenges, including unclear allocation of rights and interests of data, breaches of personal privacy, misuse of personal information, and an underdeveloped collaborative mechanism. To overcome these barriers in the era of big data, firstly it is necessary to clarify the rights and interests’ allocation of health care data. Health care data involves three categories of stakeholders: patients, medical institutions, and the public. It is essential to appropriately allocate the rights and interests to health care data among patients, medical institutions, and public health management agencies. From the perspective of effectively utilizing health care data, the rights and interests of patients to their personal health care data are merely an extension of their individual rights and do not include the right to use the data in terms of resource utilization. The rights and interests to use health care data for resource utilization should be granted to medical institutions that actually own or control the health care data. For public health management agencies serving the public interest, only necessary rights and interests should be granted when meeting the needs of the public interest. Secondly, it is necessary to balance the inherent contradiction between sharing and privacy. This requires improving the means by which patients can exercise control over their personal information, establishing a tiered protection mechanism based on the type and sensitivity of health care data, and enhancing the enforcement of health care data regulations to ensure the protection of personal privacy and data security. Ensuring efficient sharing of health data, while respecting individual privacy. Lastly, strengthening the collaborative mechanism for health care data, accelerating the compilation of a health care data resource catalog, and developing universal standards for health care data. From both technical and institutional perspectives, this lays the foundation for the orderly and secure sharing of health care data.
 
 促进健康医疗数据的流通、共享，既是推动数字经济发展的现实需要，也是实现中国健康医疗发展战略目标的关键。然而，中国健康医疗数据共享利用仍然面临数据权益配置不明、个人隐私泄露、个人信息被滥用、协作机制不健全等一系列问题。为了破解大数据时代健康医疗数据共享利用的现实壁垒，首先是要明晰健康医疗数据的权益配置。健康医疗数据涉及患者个人、医疗机构、社会公众三类利益主体，需要妥当配置患者个人、医疗机构和公共卫生管理机构对健康医疗数据的权益。从有效利用健康医疗数据的角度来看，患者对其个人健康医疗数据的权益只是个人权利的延伸，并不包括健康医疗数据资源化利用意义上的使用权。健康医疗数据资源化利用的使用权，应该赋予实际上拥有或控制健康医疗数据的医疗机构。而对服务于公共利益的公共卫生管理机构而言，只应赋予其必要的权益以满足公共利益的需要。其次，还需平衡共享与隐私的内在矛盾，需完善患者个人信息自决的行使途径，健全基于医疗健康数据类型及其敏感性的分级保护机制，并且通过加强健康医疗数据的执法进一步让个人隐私、数据安全得到保证。确保医疗健康数据高效共享的同时，又让个人隐私得到应有的尊重。最后，强化医疗健康数据的协作机制，加快编制医疗健康数据资源目录，制定医疗健康数据通用标准。从技术、制度层面，进一步奠定医疗健�

Pedagogika społeczna wobec globalnych zagrożeń zdrowia

Interest in health in educational sciences has a long tradition. Every historical era brings records of hygiene, disease prevention and body care. The classic concept of social pedagogy encourages to take actions aimed at developing permanent hygienic and cultural habits, appropriate attitudes towards health, and individual and collective action (including those related to health). The current century has initiated a “new” educational thinking whose aim is to change individual behavior as well as social activity, in which a health educator should participate. The challenges of the present day require the ability to consider and make the right choices, including health ones, indicating that the modern world urgently needs universal health education, which must be implemented by competent pedagogues.

Integrating oral care in community- oriented primary care to reduce the health gap at a local level.

Introduction: In Flemish community health centres, we consider oral health as an important aspect of integrated and integral primary care. Meanwhile we see the health gap in terms of oral care increasing among the vulnerable population.
 This workshop provides an overview of interventions, currently running in Ghent, Leuven and Brussels to close this gap. We focus on projects that improve – bottom- up - the accessibility and the organization of oral care in order to prevent large groups of citizens from falling outside the nationally regulated framework. New healthcare professions are being introduced. 
 In doing so, we run into a number of difficulties in terms of upscaling good practices, changing the financing system, sustainable cooperation with dentists, with partners and certain target groups. Join this workshop to discuss which measures downstream, midstream and upstream are needed to eliminate inequalities in oral health.
 Background: With regard to oral health, we know that a lack of preventive care and follow-up ultimately leads to more complex problems and rising costs for the patient and the community. The importance of health literacy, (preventive) oral care and adequate oral hygiene for people's general health and quality of life is generally known and has been sufficiently scientifically substantiated. (Mazevet M., 2020) Nevertheless, oral diseases such as caries remain a problem for many population groups throughout Europe, especially the socio-economically vulnerable groups continue to be hit hard. (WHO, 2022) . Belgium is no exception to this, despite the government initiatives, it appears that socially vulnerable target groups find it more difficult to find their way to professional dental care. The challenges in Belgium are great: there is not only the capacity problem among dentists, both dentists and patients experience mutual barriers. In addition, the Belgian system of payment for performance is very complex and not transparent. After all, it consists of various aspects that complicate the financial accessibility of care for many patients. (Bouckaert N., et.al., 2020). That is why several Flemish CHC's invest in oral care and try to reduce the health gap with various interventions and experiment on a mixed financing system, often with support from the local government.
 Aims: We want to inspire participants to introduce new health professionals in (preventive) oral care, and new ways of financing. This workshop will provide attendees with insight into how this approach was chosen, lessons learned and outcomes.
 
 Target: This workshop is open to everyone with interest in oral health and in change strategies at a local level, that seek impact at the macro- level of health care systems.
 Format :
 
 Introduction (5’)
 Presentation of different case studies (30')
 Interactive discussion (45’) & summary of key learnings (10’)
 
 Key Learnings: Oral care is an important aspect of primary healthcare:
 - the importance of deploying dental hygienists also for health promotion and prevention in the neighborhood
 - the possible added value of a mixed financing model
 - local change strategies with an impact on supra-local health policy

The selection of indicators for monitoring health and social care integration in Dutch regions: a Delphi-study

Background: Health care systems in Western countries are increasingly pressured by population changes and labor market shortages. In response, Dutch health authorities and interest groups agreed on a reform agenda in 2018. A key reform principle is 'the right care in the right place': the regional coordination of initiatives to prevent, substitute, or relocate health and support services across health and social care systems in order to better meet the needs of residents and to improve their functioning. However, diverging stakeholder perspectives on this reform challenges regional partnerships to select useful indicators to determine local needs and improvement areas. We therefore aimed to facilitate academic and field expert consensus, and propose useful indicator sets in supporting the regional discussion about delivering 'the right care in the right place'.
 Methods: Modified Delphi and nominal group techniques were used. Invited experts included representatives from interest groups (patients, vulnerable residents, and care professionals), knowledge institutes, regional partnerships, municipalities and private health insurers. First, from published international research about measures used in the context of population health management, researchers identified indicators, clustered them in themes, which they then pre-selected for potential relevance. Second, a web-survey and validated scoring methods were used to establish expert consensus about relevant themes. Third, experts voted on themes, discussed initial voting results, and – if desired – changed votes during online meetings. Fourth, for the 25 prioritized themes, researchers identified available indicators from data collections in the Netherlands. Fifth, another web-survey was used for expert voting on indicator usefulness per theme. Sixth, indicator sets were presented, and next steps were discussed with experts. During rounds 2-6, experts added indicators, shared arguments on their selections, or both. These qualitative data were thematically coded.
 Results: Contributions by 40 experts resulted in: 1) a base set with available indicators with the highest aggregated score for the 25 prioritized themes, 2) a ‘optional set’ with other ‘not-low-scoring’ indicators, and 3) an indicator development agenda. Amongst themes with the highest priority, those about structure (e.g., ‘collaboration across health and social care systems’) and processes (e.g., ‘inflow, throughflow and outflow within care chains’) generally received more votes than those about outcomes (e.g., ‘healthy weight’). Experts argued mostly against the usefulness of available indicators for the highest prioritized themes. Arguments raised were often about ability to influence the indicator or whether the indicator says something about multi-system developments, e.g., both in health and social care. For twelve themes, experts did not comment on the indicators chosen for the base- and optional-set.
 Learned lessons and next steps: Consensus techniques facilitated the establishment of common ground for selecting useful indicators about regional health and social care integration. Although available indicators appeared acceptable for almost half of the prioritized themes, open and routinely collected data provide limited opportunities to indicate integrative regional reform as stakeholders intend. Prioritized and accepted indicators will be made accessible in an existing online data tool. Execution of the development agenda starts with instrument development for indicating cross-system regional collaboration.

The Belgian Integrated DEpression Care (IDECA) project: implementation and scientific evaluation protocol

Background: Depression creates a substantial personal burden for affected individuals and their families, and produces significant economic and social hardships that affect society as a whole. In Belgium, depression is a leading cause of disability, measured as disability-adjusted life years. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly exacerbated the already substantial health and socioeconomic consequences of depression and has led to major changes in the need for and delivery of mental health services. Integrating mental health services into primary care is the most viable way to closing existing treatment gaps. The majority of people with mental disorders treated in primary care have good outcomes, particularly when linked to a network of services at secondary level and in the community. A balanced model of depression care calls for a system with community-based mental health care, delivered by primary care physicians and supported by other professionals in an eco-system of care.
 Aim: Implementation of an integrated depression care (IDECA) intervention in two regions in Flanders, Belgium with evaluation of the intervention’s working components, its acceptance by patients and care providers, and the contextual conditions which needs to be fulfilled to safeguard success of the model of care.
 Methods: A scientific steering committee including multiple academic expertise areas and patient representatives guided the development of the intervention and its scientific evaluation. Moreover, feedback was obtained from the Flemish Institute for Primary Care (VIVEL), the Family Doctors Medical Association (Domus Medica), and a mental health interest group(Psyche VZW). This resulted in an implementation design without control group and a targeted heterogeneous patient population with depression to obtain real-world evidence. IDECA consists of three intervention pillars: (i) the integration of two reference persons mental health (case management function) into general medical practice and who provide diagnostic support, coordination, follow up care, and patient education; (ii) the implementation of a validated shared care treatment protocol; and (iii) professional training on depression screening and management. The three pillars will be further operationalized in co-creation with the selected regions. The intervention will run for 15 months.
 Data will be collected from both participating care providers and patients. Evaluation will take place using a Realist Evaluation approach in combination with the NoMad questionnaire for care providers which measures the four implementation metrics of the Normalization Process Theory: i. coherence, ii. cognitive participation, iii. collective action, and iv. reflexive monitoring. NoMad process data will serve as a basis for semi-structured qualitative research on Context-Mechanism-Outcome constellations. Questionnaires will be used to measure depression and anxiety levels, health literacy, quality of life, patient satisfaction, therapy adherence and self-efficacy, and healthcare resource utilization in patients.
 Results: Patient enrollment will start at the beginning of 2023. Preliminary data on patient characteristics and first data on care providers’ acceptance and engagement with the IDECA project will be presented, next to the co-creative development process of the intervention.
 Conclusion: The IDECA-study aims at the implementation of integrated depression care and evaluation of its feasibility in two different regions in Belgium.

Legal regulation of responsibility for violation of traffic rules in Ukraine

The article is devoted to the study of legal regulation of responsibility for violation of traffic rules in Ukraine. Analyzing official statistics, it can be stated that the number of traffic accidents has decreased significantly in recent years compared to previous years. But despite this, almost every day the news is full of information about road accidents that have fatal consequences. In such a situation, it is simply dangerous to count on the professionalism of drivers, the serviceability of vehicles, the responsibility of pedestrians, and the safety of the transport infrastructure. Currently, it does not matter who you are - a pedestrian, a driver, or a passenger - every road user must understand the importance and necessity of following the rules of the road. Very often, the main incentive for compliance with such rules of conduct by all road users is the normatively established responsibility for their violation. The normative-legal regulation of responsibility for violation of traffic rules aims to protect social relations in the field of ensuring road traffic safety and fixes the following types: civil, administrative, criminal.
 The issue of legal regulation of responsibility for violations of traffic rules in Ukraine plays a significant role because it has significant potential for improving the quality of life of citizens, developing the country's economy by implementing the fundamental goal of legal regulation of road safety - reducing the number of road accidents and saving the lives of Ukrainian citizens.
 The peculiarity of civil liability for violation of traffic rules is compensation for damage caused by the use of vehicles, which is a source of increased danger.
 Administrative responsibility for violation of traffic rules consists in applying fines to road users for violation of the mentioned rules, operation of transport and roads.
 Criminal liability in the field of road traffic safety arises if, during the use of a vehicle, a danger to life, human health, property, environmental safety, public safety, rights and legitimate interests of citizens, enterprises, institutions, organizations is created.

THE EFFECTS OF RESISTANCE TRAINING ON IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF INSTITUTIONALISED OLDER ADULTS

The aging of the population represents one of the biggest challenges that modern society is facing, which has resulted in the world’s scientific community showing increasing interest in health and quality of life. The aim of this research was to determine the effects of resistance training with elastic bands on improving the quality of life of institutionalised older adults. The study included 22 older adults who were divided into two groups: the experimental group (n=13), and the control group (n=9). The research results indicate that programmed resistance training with elastic bands is an effective tool in improving and advancing the quality of life of institutionalised persons, specifically in relation to physical functioning, energy/fatigue, emotional well-being, social functioning, pain, and general health, in favour of the experimental group of subjects.

Community Health Scholars: a summer program developing a public health workforce pipeline for diverse high school students.

In response to the growing interest in public health and needs to both increase and diversify the public health workforce, opportunities to engage students early in their educational journey are essential. The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa launched the Community Health Scholars Program to provide activities for high school students to learn about and build enthusiasm for the field of public health. During the 6-week, in-person summer program, students underrepresented in higher education and who are from historically underrepresented communities completed a college course and participated in activities to enhance their successful entry into a higher education institution. The Community Health Scholars completed an introduction to public health course and gained an array of public health skills through different hands-on activities. The students gained self-confidence and expanded their social capital by attending workshops led by campus faculty, staff, and community partners. A final project highlighting what students learned about themselves and their community was part of a final program showcase. Here we share information about the process of developing the program, the components of the program curriculum, and feedback from both students of the initial cohort and program faculty, where overall satisfaction with the program was reported.

“Food faddists and pseudoscientists!”: Reflections on the history of resistance to ultra-processed foods

The term ‘ultra-processed food’ emerged in the 1980s, mostly used in reference to highly-processed convenience foods and snacks, often energy-dense, poor in nutrients, and inclusive of various synthetic additives such as emulsifiers, colors, artificial sweeteners, and/or flavor enhancers. Concern over such foods was part of the growing holistic and environmental health movements of the 1970–80s; yet, those who raised alarm about the encroachment of ultra-processed foods were often labeled, especially by industry and their powerful allies, as ‘food faddists’ and ‘pseudoscientists’. Today, the topic of ultra-processed foods is generating massive personal, public, and planetary health interest. However, other than discussing the history of the NOVA food classification system, a useful tool that has allowed researchers to more accurately separate foods based on processing, most lay media and academic articles are ahistorical. That is, there is a tendency to present the term ultra-processed food(s) as a relatively new entrance into the lexicon, and by default, the idea that health-related pushback on ultra-processed foods is a relatively new phenomenon. This omission overlooks decades of determined advocacy and clinical work, much of it by pioneers within the holistic medicine (now integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine) movement. Here in this reflection paper, the authors will use historical research and reporting to fill in the historical gap and articulate the saliency of why it matters.