scholarly journals Public Health for Young Adults Day: Recruiting the Next Generation

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary-Kate Pung ◽  
Nicholas Williams ◽  
Rachel Kirkland ◽  
Angie Peden ◽  
Ashley Walker
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Next Generation

Locking down behavioural compliance: The role of emotion and emotion regulation in breaches of COVID-19 mitigation measures in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. 135910532110299
Author(s):  
Terise Broodryk ◽  
Kealagh Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Health Behaviours ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
High Knowledge ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Insight Into

Although anxiety and worry can motivate engagement with COVID-19 preventative behaviours, people may cognitively reframe these unpleasant emotions, restoring wellbeing at the cost of public health behaviours. New Zealand young adults ( n = 278) experiencing nationwide COVID-19 lockdown reported their worry, anxiety, reappraisal and lockdown compliance. Despite high knowledge of lockdown policies, 92.5% of participants reported one or more policy breaches ( M  = 2.74, SD = 1.86). Counter to predictions, no relationships were found between anxiety or worry with reappraisal or lockdown breaches. Findings highlight the importance of targeting young adults in promoting lockdown compliance and offer further insight into the role of emotion during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Young adults understanding and readiness to engage with palliative care: extending the reach of palliative care through a public health approach: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Mallon ◽  
Felicity Hasson ◽  
Karen Casson ◽  
Paul Slater ◽  
Sonja McIlfatrick
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Comfort Care ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Framework Approach

Abstract Background Moving palliative care from a solely clinical focus to a more population based and community orientated approach is the hallmark of a much advocated public health approach to palliative care. Young adults are a vital cohort of the public, yet their understanding of palliative care has not been investigated. This study aimed to explore young adults’ understanding of palliative care and identify factors that influence their engagement. Methods A purposive sample of young adults (n = 24) aged 18–29 years were recruited from one UK University. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken face to face or via telephone or Skype between November 2017 and February 2018. Thematic analysis using a framework approach and underpinned by a socioecological perspective was used to analyse the interviews. Results Three thematic categories were identified relating to intrapersonal and interpersonal influences, cultural and social influences and organisational and public policy influences. Palliative care was understood as supportive comfort care, delivered in the absence of cure, associated with the end of life and specifically focused on death and dying. Negative attitudes related to the context of care, which represented a static and hopeless situation. Whilst some reported positive attitudes, potential engagement was seen to be governed by a lack of knowledge and protective cultural norms. In terms of demonstrating readiness to engage with palliative care, participants requested clear information and suggested a normalising of palliative care through the education system. Conclusion Young adults in this study were ready to find out more about palliative care and identified social media as a platform upon which to engage this population. However, their perception of a society that views palliative care as a subject for those directly affected, creates a barrier to engagement. This study identified the ingredients of a public health message and mediums for disseminating the message. However, findings also suggest that a cultural shift is required to recognise the potential of engaging young adults in health issues that cross the life span, empowering them not only as individuals but as vital members of community and society.

A Tool for Quantifying the Quality of Online Health Information on Student Health Center Websites (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anagha Kulkarni ◽  
Mike Wong ◽  
Tejasvi Belsare ◽  
Risha Shah ◽  
Diana Yu Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Center ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Student Health ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Student Health Center

BACKGROUND The Internet has become a major source of health information especially for adolescents and young adults. Unfortunately, inaccurate, incomplete or outdated health information is widespread online. Often adolescents and young adults turn to authoritative websites such as the student health center (SHC) website of the university they are attending to obtain reliable health information. Although most on-campus SHC clinics comply with the American College Health Association (ACHA) standards, their websites are not subject to any standards or code of conduct. In the absence of quality standards or guidelines, the monitoring and compliance processes do not exist for SHC websites either. As such, there is no oversight on the health information published on the SHC websites by any central governing body. OBJECTIVE Our objective is to enable researchers to monitor online information quality at scale. We have created a tool that can efficiently quantify the quality of information posted on SHC websites about a health topic. Specifically, this quantitative tool provides information on quality, such as reading ease, coverage of the topic, and the degree of fact-based objective information. METHODS Our cross-functional team has designed and developed an open-source software, QMOHI: Quantitative Measures of Online Health Information, using the Agile software development methodology. The QMOHI tool finds the SHC website and gathers information on the specific health topic of interest from a prespecified list of university websites. Based on the retrieved text, the tool computes eight different quality metrics. The QMOHI tool is a fully automated tool that is designed to be scalable, generalizable, and robust. RESULTS The first empirical evaluation shows that the QMOHI tool is highly scalable and substantially more efficient than the manual approach of assessing online information quality. The second experimental results demonstrate QMOHI’s ability to work effectively with starkly different health topics (COVID, Cancer, LARC, and Condom) and with narrowly focused topics (hormonal IUD and copper IUD); thereby establishing the generalizability and versatility of the tool. The results from the last experiment demonstrate that QMOHI is not vulnerable to typical structural changes that SHC websites may undergo (e.g. URL changes) over a long period of time. QMOHI is able to support longitudinal studies by being robust to such website changes. CONCLUSIONS QMOHI allows public health researchers and practitioners to conduct large-scale studies of SHC websites that were previously too time intensive. The capability to generalize broadly or focus narrowly allows for wide applications of QMOHI, equipping researchers to study both mainstream and underexplored health topics. QMOHI’s ability to robustly analyze SHC websites periodically facilitates longitudinal investigations and monitor SHC progress. QMOHI serves as a launching pad for our future work that aims to develop a broadly applicable public health tool for online health information studies with potential applications far beyond SHC websites.

scholarly journals Is Loneliness an Undervalued Pathway between Socio-Economic Disadvantage and Health?

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (19) ◽  
pp. 10177
Author(s):  
Rachelle Meisters ◽  
Polina Putrik ◽  
Daan Westra ◽  
Hans Bosma ◽  
Dirk Ruwaard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Social Determinant ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Economic Disadvantage ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
Socioeconomic Health Inequalities

Loneliness is a growing public health issue. It is more common in disadvantaged groups and has been associated with a range of poor health outcomes. Loneliness may also form an independent pathway between socio-economic disadvantage and poor health. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the contribution of loneliness to socio-economic health inequalities. These contributions were studied in a Dutch national sample (n = 445,748 adults (≥19 y.o.)) in Poisson and logistic regression models, controlling for age, gender, marital status, migration background, BMI, alcohol consumption, smoking, and physical activity. Loneliness explained 21% of socioeconomic health inequalities between the lowest and highest socio-economic groups in self-reported chronic disease prevalence, 27% in poorer self-rated health, and 51% in psychological distress. Subgroup analyses revealed that for young adults, loneliness had a larger contribution to socioeconomic gaps in self-rated health (37%) than in 80+-year-olds (16%). Our findings suggest that loneliness may be a social determinant of health, contributing to the socioeconomic health gap independently of well-documented factors such as lifestyles and demographics, in particular for young adults. Public health policies targeting socioeconomic health inequalities could benefit from integrating loneliness into their policies, especially for young adults.

scholarly journals Research on Stress Among the Engineering College Students in Coimbatore, India

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6S) ◽  
pp. 73-75
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
Late Adolescents ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Significant Public Health

The students are generally affected by stress especially in professional courses like medical, engineering are affected by higher stress, this leads to psychological problems such as high amount of depression, nervousness, cardiac problems etc.,. Mental health among the students indicates growing concern along with opportunity, because of the large number of people who could be reached during an important period of life. College premises, by their scholarly nature, are also well positioned to develop, evaluate, and disseminate best practices. In short, colleges offer a unique opportunity to address one of the most significant public health problems among late adolescents and young adults. Busy schedules crammed with curricular, co-curricular and extracurricular activities can affect the student’s physical and mental health, especially on delayed eating and improper and less sleeping. These stressors can compound over time, leading to even greater levels of stress. College premises, by their scholarly nature, are also well positioned to develop, evaluate, and disseminate best practices. In short, colleges offer a unique opportunity to address one of the most significant public health problems among late adolescents and young adults. This study aims to analyse the stress among the engineering students from sample survey. A quantitative method was used in gathering and analysing the data by distributing questionnaires to the students. The results obtained were analysed for different factors that cause stress among students

scholarly journals Comprehensive Contraceptive Education Intervention in a College Setting: Design and Methodology

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Evans ◽  
Breanna De Leon ◽  
Reaghan Bathrick ◽  
Annie Ricupero
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Unintended Pregnancy ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Education Intervention ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Unintended Pregnancies ◽  
Contraceptive Education

Background: Unintended pregnancy continues to be a public health concern across the nation. National data demonstrates the highest rates of unintended pregnancy occurs in women who are 18 to 24 years old. Providing practical and meaningful health education about contraception has the potential to reduce unintended pregnancy and improve quality of life for young adults. This paper describes the design and methodology for a comprehensive contraceptive education intervention at a public university. Methods: Convenience sampling was used with a custom survey conducted in Women’s Health classes from 2015-2021. Surveys contained questions about demographic characteristics, knowledge of contraception options, sources of knowledge, stress levels, and confidence in knowledge. Students completed a pretest, received a comprehensive contraception health education lecture, and completed a post-test. Data collection was approved by the university’s IRB, and analyses were conducted using SPSS Version 27. Conclusion: At a time when reproductive freedom, choice, and justice is scrutinized and suppressed, it is imperative that young adults maintain and understand the importance of having control over when, where, and how they decide to have children if they desire to do so. There is a need for continued comprehensive health education and appropriate resources at the university level. The use of assessments, building trusted professor-student relationships, and exploring credible and reliable information sources can be used to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies for college-aged students. If significant, the replication of the design and methods could have a significant impact on the public health problem of unintended pregnancies, maternal health equity, and reproductive justice.

scholarly journals Students’ Perspectives: How Will COVID-19 Shape the Social Determinants of Health and Our Future as Public Health Practitioners?

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 850-854
Author(s):  
Eliyas K. Asfaw ◽  
Emily S. Guo ◽  
Sarah S. Jang ◽  
Swathi R. Komarivelli ◽  
Katherine A. Lewis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Inequities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Public Health Professionals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Practitioners ◽  
To Come ◽  
Public Health Practitioners

We are the next generation of public health practitioners. As public health students, we acknowledge that the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic will continue to fundamentally alter the field that we are preparing to enter. We will be the first wave of public health professionals whose education is being shaped by this pandemic. For decades to come, we will be working to address the impacts of this pandemic. In this commentary, we are lending our voice to discuss and highlight the importance of considering the intersections of various determinants of health and COVID-19, including education, food insecurity, housing instability, and economic hardship. We provide a discussion on what is being done across the United States in attempts to reduce the growing health inequities. As the next generation of public health leaders, we believe that only by investing in these issues can we begin to address the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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