Nationwide efforts to protect the public against the health effects of secondhand smoke have prompted college and university administrators to adopt more restrictive smoking policies. Some campus officials are concerned that new policies will lead to student backlash, increased staff workloads, and an increased economic burden. To understand the…

This study investigated social predictors of sunscreen and self-tanning product use among 164 undergraduates. Immediate family members' sunscreen use predicted participants' facial sunscreen use while sunbathing but not their sunscreen use on other areas of the body. In addition, familial support of a tanned appearance was inversely associated…

The extremes of college student substance use and the negative consequences students face as a result of such use are of great public health concern. Although a multitude of campus-based substance abuse prevention efforts have appeared in literature, a clear picture of the programs and policies currently in use at colleges and universities is not…

The current series of studies was conducted to explore the interplay between death awareness, fear of intimacy, and unsafe sex. In Study 1 (n=73), making mortality salient led to higher willingness to engage in risky sexual behaviors, in comparison to a control condition. In addition, only in the mortality salience condition, lower fear of…

This study examined anger, depression, and stress as related to alcohol consumption, saturated fat intake, and physical activity. Participants were 23 older adults enrolled in either an outpatient or in-residence executive health program. Participants completed (a) a health-risk appraisal assessing medical history and current health habits, (b)…

Objective: To examine predicted relationships among transtheoretical model of change measures in a sample of 211 low-income, African American hospitalized smokers. Methods: We used discriminant analysis to examine differences in decisional balance and self-efficacy across stages of change for quitting. Results: Differences in decisional balance…

Although scientists and policy makers have established the importance of physical activity for health and well being across the life span (e.g., Baranowski et al. 2000, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 2000), youth are not meeting public health physical activity standards (USDHHS, 1997, 2000). And, while physical inactivity…

It is increasingly argued that the effectiveness of health promotion interventions should be measured to inform policy and practice. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) continues to be regarded as the "gold standard" of health services research but health promotion practitioners have raised concerns about the RCT's appropriateness for evaluating…

Much of the daily work of professional organizations is accomplished via interaction between representatives of those institutions and laypeople. Scholars of talk in institutional settings have argued that lay-professional interaction is often assumed mistakenly to operate as a neutral conduit for professionals to gain information relevant to…

Sport psychologists know that many people who do a behavior voluntarily over a long period of time have discovered for themselves an inner feeling that motivates them to perform the behavior, such as exercise, for its own sake. This form of motivation has been labeled "intrinsic" by some researchers. The concept of intrinsic motivation, when…

Universal Precautions (UPs), procedures to reduce the likelihood of accidental exposure to blood-borne pathogens, were observed among seven Certified Nurse Anesthetists and one anesthesia technician during intravenous line procedures. After six weeks of baseline measures, nurses participated in training, goal setting, and feedback targeting hand…

This study examined the relationship between self-reported frequency of condom use (by self or partner during the past 6 months and lifetime), locus of control, self-efficacy, and future time orientation among African American college students who were single and sexually active during the past year. Data were collected from 106 undergraduate…

This study assessed the association of lifestyle and clinical health behaviors with prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests. The study used cross-sectional data from the 2002 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). We used Stata 8.0 to take into account the complex sample design in analyses. Both lifestyle and clinical health behaviors…

This study assessed the use of complementary and alternative medicine among college students (N=913), the relationships between health locus of control with use of complementary and alternative medicine, and health local of control with attitudes toward complementary and alternative medicine and what predicts their use. A majority (66%, n-913) of…

Objective: To derive an empirical taxonomy of osteoprotective stages using the Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) and to identify the predisposing factors associated with each stage. Methods: An anonymous survey was completed by 504 undergraduates at a Midwestern public university. Results: Cluster analytic findings indicate that only 2…