Incentives for Smoking Cessation During Pregnancy: An Ethical Framework.

INTRODUCTION: Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of morbidity and mortality of the mother and child. The inability of the unborn child to protect itself, raises the social and academic responsibility to protect the child from the harmful effects of smoking. Interventions including rewards (incentives) for lifestyle changes are an upcoming trend and can encourage women to quit smoking. However, these incentives can, as we will argue, also have negative consequences, for example the restriction of personal autonomy and encouragement of smoking to become eligible for participation. To prevent these negative consequences, we developed an ethical framework that enables to assess and address unwanted consequences of incentive-based interventions whereby moral permissibility can be evaluated. AIMS AND METHODS: The possible adverse consequences of incentives were identified through an extensive literature search. Subsequently, we developed ethical criteria to identify these consequences based on the biomedical ethical principles of Beauchamp and Childress. RESULTS: Our framework consists of 12 criteria. These criteria concern (1) effectiveness, (2) support of a healthy lifestyle, (3) motivational for the target population, (4) stimulating unhealthy behavior, (5) negative attitudes, (6) personal autonomy, (7) intrinsic motivation, (8) privacy, (9) fairness, (10) allocation of incentives, (11) cost-effectiveness, and (12) health inequity. Based on these criteria, the moral permissibility of potential interventions can be evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: Incentives for smoking cessation are a response to the responsibility to protect the unborn child. But these interventions might have possible adverse effects. This ethical framework aims to identify and address ethical pitfalls in order to avoid these adverse effects. IMPLICATIONS: Although various interventions to promote smoking cessation during pregnancy exist, many women still smoke during pregnancy. Interventions using incentives for smoking cessation during pregnancy are a promising and upcoming trend but can have unwanted consequences. This ethical framework helps to identify and address ethical pitfalls in order to avoid these adverse effects.It can be a practical tool in the development and evaluation of these interventions and in evaluating the moral permissibility of interventions using incentives for smoking cessation during pregnancy.

Prediction of Preadolescent Overweight and Poor Cardiometabolic Outcome in Children up to 6 Years of Age: Research Protocol.

BACKGROUND: Dynamic risk estimations may enable targeting primary prevention of overweight and overweight-related adverse cardiometabolic outcome in later life, potentially serving as a valuable addition to universal primary prevention. This approach seems particularly promising in young children, as body mass index (BMI) changes at a young age are highly predictive of these outcomes, and parental lifestyle interventions at a young age are associated with improved long-term outcome. OBJECTIVE: This paper describes the design of our study, which aims to develop digitized tools that can be implemented in the Dutch Child Health Care (CHC) system or by pediatricians for children up to 6 years of age. These tools will enable (1) dynamically predicting the development of overweight, hypertension or prehypertension, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) values, and high total cholesterol to HDL-C ratio by early adolescence and (2) identifying children who are likely to have poor cardiometabolic outcome by the age of 5-6 years and by the age of 10 years. METHODS: Data will be obtained from the Generation R (n=7893) and Prevention and Incidence of Asthma and Mite Allergy (PIAMA; n=3963) cohorts, two Dutch prenatally recruited cohorts. We will select candidate predictors that can be assessed during the first visit and/or during subsequent visits to the CHC center or pediatrician, including sex; parental age, education level, and BMI; smoking exposure; ethnicity; birth weight; gestational age; breastfeeding versus formula feeding; and growth data through the age of 6 years. We will design dynamic prediction models that can be updated with new information obtained during subsequent CHC visits, allowing each measurement to be added to the model. Performance of the model will be assessed in terms of discrimination and calibration. Finally, the model will be validated both internally and externally using the combined cohort data and then converted into a computer-assisted tool called ProCOR (Prediction Of Child CardiOmetabolic Risk). RESULTS: This is an ongoing research project financed by the Dutch government. The first results are expected in 2016. CONCLUSIONS: This study may contribute to the national implementation of digitized tools for assessing the risk of overweight and related cardiometabolic outcome in young children, enabling targeted primary prevention, ultimately yielding relevant health gains and improved resource allocation.