Effectiveness of “I Can Do It, You Can Do It” Health Promotion Program for Individuals With Disabilities

Date Presented 04/13/21 University of Kansas Medical Center OT supports many community programs to reduce health disparity in our community. The COVID-19 pandemic created a need for alternative health promotion programs. This study aimed to determine the feasibility of implementing the I Can Do It (ICDI) program virtually. Once established, a pre–post descriptive study was completed to explore ICDI further. The results may have strong influence on OT practice for adapting and executing interventions virtually. Primary Author and Speaker: Kayla Hamner

Does digital technology reduce health disparity? Investigating difference of depression stemming from socioeconomic status among Chinese older adults

Background Prior studies on health disparity have shown that socioeconomic status is critical to inequality of health outcomes such as depression. However, two questions await further investigation: whether disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status will become larger when depression becomes severer, and whether digital technology will reduce the disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status. Our study aims to answer the above two questions. Methods By using the dataset from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2015, we use quantile regression models to examine the association between socioeconomic status and depression across different quantiles, and test the moderating effect of digital technology. Results Our study obtains four key findings. First, the negative effects of socioeconomic status on depression present an increasing trend at high quantiles. Second, Internet usage exacerbates the disparity in depression associated with education level on average, but reduces this disparity associated with education level at high quantiles. Third, Internet usage reduces the disparity in depression associated with income on average and at high quantiles. Fourth, mobile phone ownership has almost no moderating effect on the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression. Conclusions Our findings suggest the potential use of digital technology in reducing disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status among middle-aged and aged individuals in developing countries.

Does Digital Technology Reduce Health Disparity? Investigating Difference of Depression Stemming From Socioeconomic Status Among Chinese Older Adults

Background: Prior studies on health disparity have shown that socioeconomic status is critical to inequality of health outcomes such as depression. However, two questions await further investigation: whether disparity in depression caused by socioeconomic status will become larger when depression becomes severer, and whether digital technology will reduce the disparity in depression caused by socioeconomic status. Our study aims to answer the above two questions. Methods: By using the dataset from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2015, we use quantile regression models to examine the effect of socioeconomic status on depression across different quantiles, and test the moderating effect of digital technology. Results: Our study obtains four key findings. First, the negative effects of socioeconomic status on depression present an increasing trend at high quantiles. Second, Internet usage exacerbates the disparity in depression caused by education level on average, but reduces this disparity caused by education level at high quantiles. Third, Internet usage reduces the disparity in depression caused by income on average and at high quantiles. Fourth, mobile phones have almost no moderating effect on the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression. Conclusions: Our findings suggest the potential use of digital technology in reducing disparity in depression caused by socioeconomic status among middle-aged and aged individuals in developing countries.

Current status and issues concerning Health Japan 21 (second term)

The national health promotion program, Health Japan 21 (second term), began in 2013. This program has set 5 basic goals: to extend healthy life expectancy and reduce health disparity, to prevent noncommunicable disease, to improve function for social life, to establish a social environment for health, and to improve lifestyle. To achieve these goals, Health Japan 21 (second term) set 53 targets for the period between 2013 and 2022. At the interim evaluation in 2018, only 21 of the 53 targets were judged likely to be achieved by 2022. In addition, 18 targets were judged as unchanged, and 1 target was judged to be deteriorating. Thus, to achieve the goals of Health Japan 21 (second term), further efforts to strengthen health promotion programs across Japan are needed.