Effects of socioeconomic status on the physical activity in adolescents: a systematic review of the evidence.

The relationship between physical activity and socioeconomic status (SES) is evident in the adult population, but is much discussed with regard to adolescents. The main objective of this review was, therefore, to clarify whether there is a relationship between physical activity and SES in adolescents. Computerized searches were conducted in the databases PubMed, ISI Web of knowledge and SPORT-Discus to identify all relevant articles up to July 2009. Other review articles, descriptive or theoretical articles and articles where the adolescents in the samples were outside the age group of 13-18 years were excluded. Sixty-two articles were included in the end. The main results support the hypothesis that there is an association between SES and physical activity among adolescents, and that adolescents with higher SES are more physically active than those with lower SES. The findings are, however, far from uniform. Forty-two percent of the included studies report no or an opposite relation. There is also an inconsistent use of measures for both variables that complicates explanations and interpretations of the findings. This fortifies the claim that there is no single explanation for a possible difference in physical activity between different socioeconomic groups.

Interrelationship among selected measures of motor skills.

BACKGROUND: This study set out to explore the interrelationship among selected measures of motor skills. METHODS: Ninety-one 4-year-old children from 10 nursery schools were tested using eight motor tasks from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children test. RESULTS: The most striking finding was that there were very low correlations between the motor tasks. CONCLUSIONS: In relation to these findings, it is possible to argue that learning of particular motor skills is specific to that task. This is discussed in relation to the principle of task specificity of learning.

Sex differences in lateralisation of fine manual skills in children.

One hundred and twelve children (55 boys and 57 girls) were tested using two tasks taken from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children. The girls had a larger between-hands asymmetry than boys on the threading nuts on bolt task, thus indicating they were more lateralised. On the other task, placing pegs, no such sex differences were found. We present our findings as a warning to others that even though two tasks are assumed to measure the same, in this case unimanual performance, differences in task constraints will exist. Such differences may constitute a confounding factor when trying to infer about lateralisation based on behavioural tasks.

We can cure your child's clumsiness! A review of intervention methods.

Intervention procedures for treatment of clumsiness have come in many guises. We have looked at some of the most powerful methods put forward in the past 30 years--Perceptual-motor training (PMT), Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT), and some promising new approaches. Both the PMT and the SIT have been heavily criticised. It is hard to find support for the idea that the programmes improve academic skills or that they have more than a limited effect on perceptual-motor development as claimed. The more recently introduced Kinaesthetic training is shown to have an effect on general motor competence but that this may be better explained in terms of the general principles on which this training procedure lies rather than the influence on Kinaesthesis per se. Since other recent studies have also shown a dependence on similar general principles, it might be asked whether it is the teacher rather than the programmes that accounts for the differences shown between different intervention programmes.

The Danish approach to standards for economic evaluation methodologies.

Standards for economic evaluation have now been proposed in several countries. The background for this article is a report commissioned in 1994 by the Danish health authorities (the National Board of Health and the Danish Ministry of Health) on the state of the art of economic evaluation: are the methods ready to be used for systematic decision-making in the Danish healthcare sector? The themes of this article are the attitude towards economic evaluation of medical technologies and healthcare services in Denmark, the areas for application and the desirability and feasibility of a standard set of methods for conducting economic evaluations. In addition, the current state of methodologies in economic evaluation is briefly outlined. On the background of a roundtable discussion of interested parties, the Danish health authorities have decided to introduce economic evaluation of new pharmaceutical products, on a voluntary basis for 2 to 3 years, when application has been made for public reimbursement.