Examines an ecological approach for promoting physical activity in middle school, reviewing data collected in physical education classes, leisure settings, and structured extracurricular programs during the 4-year Middle School Physical Activity and Nutrition Project. The paper makes recommendations for improving physical activity in middle school…

Seventy-nine high school seniors were administered the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), as well as a questionnaire on parent relationships; peer relationships; positive and negative feelings including suicidal thoughts; and lifestyle variables including academic performance, exercise, and drug use. Results are discussed…

How do sexually reactive youth differ from other delinquents or from nonoffenders? This research demonstrates that all three groups were similar on measures of emotional expressiveness. Sexual offenders were unique mainly in the training they had experienced. The environment in which children are raised appears to have great influence on how they…

Assessed lifetime and recent alcohol use among fifth graders, examining students' attitudes and beliefs concerning alcohol. Surveys of 813 students indicated that 48.9 percent had ever tried alcohol, and 17.9 percent had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. Significant differences in alcohol-related attitudes and beliefs were found according to…

Describes adolescents' use of school-based health clinics (SBCs) for family planning and sexually transmitted disease (STD)-related services, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results indicated that 13 percent received family planning and 8.9 percent received STD-related services from SBCs. Factors affecting the…

Examined whether stages of exercise adoption were associated with the practice of other health behaviors. Surveys of university employees examined demographics, health behavior, and stages of change. Results indicated that stage of exercise adoption was predictive of three out of five health behaviors. Encouraging individuals to think about…

Analysis of data from the Puerto Rican Maternal and Infant Health Study found that recent migrants to the U.S. mainland experienced fewer stressful life events and engaged in fewer negative health behaviors during pregnancy than U.S.-born Puerto Rican women. Recent migrants also exhibited better infant health outcomes than childhood migrants or…

Comprehensive clinical programs for teenage mothers and their children have been a promising intervention to improve outcomes of teenage childbearing and parenting. Evaluations in this study reported moderate success in preventing repeat pregnancies, continuing education, and improving health care. It is concluded that increased support and…

Identified the best methods of reaching people at high risk with HIV-prevention messages. Data from men who had sex with men, injection drug users, sex workers, HIV-positive people, heterosexuals, migrant workers, and perinatal women indicated that over 70 percent were exposed to HIV-prevention messages, though sources of exposure varied by risk…

This 1954 paper focuses on the measurement of educational outcomes from school health programs. Educational outcomes can be grouped into four areas: knowledge, attitudes, habits, and skills. The paper describes how to conduct knowledge testing, looks at findings from the research on health knowledge testing, and presents examples of health…

This 1949 paper considers the evaluation of health education outcomes. It describes the nature of health education, discusses whether it is possible to measure all health education outcomes, then examines how to evaluate student health habits and skills, health attitudes, and health knowledge. It concludes that it is important to evaluate health…

Profiles the development and characteristics of the Power Through Choices curriculum designed to prevent adolescent pregnancy, HIV infection, and sexually transmitted diseases among out-of-home care adolescents. Highlights a 1997 evaluation of the curriculum's implementation, which found that students in the program responded positively to the…

The NIMH Healthy Living Project (HLP), a randomized behavioral intervention trial for people living with HIV, enrolled 943 individuals, including women, heterosexual men, injection drug users, and men who have sex with men from Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, and San Francisco. The intervention, which is based on qualitative formative research…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the everyday experience of community-dwelling elders, with particular attention to seniors' perceptions of safety, fear of falling, independence, and quality of life. We also aimed to identify contextual factors that influence the health of elders who had fallen and/or had a fear of…

Recent studies have established that a healthy immigrant effect operates in Canada--immigrants are generally healthier than Canadian-born persons--but that this effect tends to diminish over time, as the health of immigrants converges to the Canadian norm. Although this effect has been examined by place of birth, language, marital status,…