This Surgeon General's Call to Action emphasizes the need to promote sexual health and responsible sexual behavior throughout the lifespan, discussing the public health approach to this issue, the current public health problem with sexually transmitted diseases, risk and protective factors for sexual health, evidence-based intervention models, the…

Surveyed Ohio safe and drug-free school coordinators regarding their perceptions of how to improve safe and drug-free school programs. Training topics considered most beneficial included effective techniques for enhancing youth success, building parent-school-community partnerships, and providing conflict resolution skills. Lack of time and school…

With government funding, Ontario occupational therapy students were placed in community agencies not typically using therapists, at no cost. Offsite occupational therapists provided supervision. Students learned to work independently and understand the therapist's role in health promotion and prevention. Ongoing funding was provided by 25% of…

Concerned about sudden death and injury, a small, underfunded Pennsylvania district integrated a wellness center into its middle-school physical-education program to address every student's needs and detect health problems early. Sixth-graders use heart monitors to test their endurance in varied sports activities. (MLH)

Faced with child obesity rates that have reached record highs, schools across America will soon go on a fitness plan prescribed by Congress. The wellness mandate requires districts that participate in the federal school lunch program to have a policy in place by the start of the 2006-2007 school year. The law is not nearly as far-reaching as the…

Improved focus and involvement in one's physical education class are just a few of the many benefits that yoga can provide to students. Yoga, the art of bringing together the body and mind for improved strength, flexibility, and self-esteem, can also help decrease stress levels, improve academic performance, and self-confidence in school children.…

Objectives: To investigate the effects of exercise advertising on self-efficacy and decisional balance for changing exercise behavior. Methods: One hundred seventy-four university students (females = 108; males = 66) watched a video that contained health, appearance, or control advertising and completed stage of change, exercise self-efficacy, and…

Readability and usability problems with patient information leaflets continue to be reported despite long-standing recognition of their existence and the availability of guidelines for developing health education materials. This exploratory study examined possible causes for such problems, based on interviews with professionals who developed…

The aims of this exploratory qualitative study were to increase our understanding of heterosexual young adults knowledge and beliefs about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) other than HIV, to explore their beliefs about the factors that influence condom use for STI prevention, and to explore their ideas about how best to promote condom use…

Self-reflection, typically operationalized in scales of egocentrism and introspectiveness, is portrayed as problematic in much of the literature on adolescents. Self-reflection has been linked to dysfunctional self-consciousness, symptomatology, and risk behaviors. Yet, self-reflection also is seen as essential for adolescent development,…

Sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), disproportionately affect African American adolescents and young adults. Many of our current strategies and approaches have been inadequate in the promotion of risk reduction among youth and need to be reconceptualized. This article identifies issues that may guide…

This review summarizes end-of-program quit rates from 6 controlled and 10 field-based Not on Tobacco (NOT) evaluations. Approximately 6,130 youth from 5 states and 489 schools participated. Intent-to-treat and compliant quit rates were calculated at 3 months postbaseline (end-of-program). Results from controlled evaluations revealed an aggregate…

While health literacy has become an issue of concern that is increasingly discussed in the health professions, it is also an issue of importance for adult educators. Educational endeavors for a number of adults come to a premature end due to untreated health problems because the individuals lacked knowledge of how to navigate the complex health…

There is no doubt that health promotion and health education (HP/HE) in the UK are in a crisis, in view of the limited amount of financial resources available, the reduction in services and the lack of available new specialist jobs. The Government seems to have made a political decision about the reduction (if not abolition) of HP/HE services,…

Objective:: To help close the gap between health promotion research and practice by using systems thinking. Methods: We review 3 national US tobacco control initiatives and a project (ISIS) that has introduced systems thinking to tobacco control, speculating on ways in which systems thinking may add value to health promotion dissemination and…