The Twenty Five Most Important Studies in Workplace Health Promotion.

In what direction has workplace wellness research been evolving over the past 20 years? What proportion of occupational health researchers have been focusing on how health impacts work compared to researchers who ask how work affects health? This editorial poses an audacious, albeit largely subjective, question. That is, what have been the most important research studies about workplace wellness? Readers are invited to respond with their opinions about seminal studies we missed. Readers are also challenged with a thought experiment and exercise designed to organize the past decades of workplace wellness studies into a table that identifies trends in this research domain. Based on trends, I posit that researchers are waning in their interest in how health affects work productivity and healthcare costs and waxing in their considerations of how work affects well-being.

The Twenty Five Most Important Studies in Health Promotion.

Which are the studies, special reports and commentaries that have been most influential in shaping the health promotion profession? This editorial poses that question to many of America's most accomplished researchers. Each was asked to name one or two 'must read' studies from other scholars as well as to feature one of their own research projects that has had the greatest reach. This review of seminal studies focuses on community health, patient education and behavior change research and a future editorial will focus on workplace based health promotion research. Readers are challenged to review the four decades of research represented by this list and consider whether trends can be identified with respect to the relative attention researchers are giving to individual, interpersonal, community and societal factors influencing health behavior. How clear is the evidence that the choices we make are determined by the choices we have?

Recruiting 'hard to reach' parents for health promotion research: experiences from a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: Marginalised populations are less likely to take part in health research, and are sometimes considered 'easy to ignore'. We aimed to describe our approach and results of recruiting parents who experience disadvantage, for focus groups exploring infant feeding on the island of Ireland. Upon receiving ethical approval, we implemented recruitment strategies that included building rapport with community organisations through existing networks, targeting specific organisations with information about our aims, and utilising social media groups for parents. RESULTS: We approached 74 organisations of which 17 helped with recruitment. We recruited 86 parents/carers (one male) for 19 focus groups (15 urban/4 rural). Seventy two percent met at the eligibility criteria. Most participants were recruited through organisations (91%), and the remainder on social media (9%). Recruitment barriers included multiple steps, research fatigue, or uncertainty around expectations. Factors such as building rapport, simplifying the recruitment process and being flexible with procedures were facilitators. Despite comprehensive, multi-pronged approaches, the most marginalised parents may not have been reached. Further alternative recruitment strategies are required for recruiting fathers, rural populations, or those without the capacity or opportunity to engage with local services.

The 25 Best Books of All Time for Health Promotion Professionals.

Best books lists are the ultimate opinion pieces. In this editorial, this journal's editorial team go out on a big science limb together and proclaim the 25 books relating to the health promotion profession that we consider "must reads." While several of our selections are standard bearer textbooks that have informed the training of graduates from Schools of Public Health for several decades, many of our best books finalists are best-selling books that have garnered tremendous accolades in the popular press. This best books list for health promotion professionals has been published on publicly accessible blog sites and I invite readers to visit those sites and weigh in with their reactions and recommendations for books that they believe should be included in future lists.

What makes health promotion research distinct?

There have been concerns about the decline of health promotion as a practice and discipline and, alongside this, calls for a clearer articulation of health promotion research and what, if anything, makes it distinct. This discussion paper, based on a review of the literature, the authors' own experiences in the field, and a workshop delivered by two of the authors at the 8th Nordic Health Promotion Conference, seeks to state the reasons why health promotion research is distinctive. While by no means exhaustive, the paper suggests four distinctive features. The paper hopes to be a catalyst to enable health promotion researchers to be explicit in their practice and to begin the process of developing an agreed set of research principles.

Taijiquan Health Promotion Research Focus in Recent 15 Years Based on PubMed / 中国康复理论与实践

@# Objective To analyze the development trend of Taijiquan research papers in PubMed database in the past 15 years, and provide reference for the direction of scientific research. Methods Bicomb 2.0 and SPSS 20.0 software were used to systematically cluster and multidimensional scale analysis of keywords in PubMed database from 2002 to 2016, and generate knowledge maps and interpret them.Results Taijiquan exercise health promotion research hot spots in recent 15 years were breast neoplasms, depression, stress psychological, knee osteoarthritis, cognition, cognition disorders, muscle/skeletal, muscle strength, physical fitness, aging, gait, postural balance, accidental falls, exercise therapy and Parkinson disease.Conclusion Taijiquan exercise has been used as a kind of "sports therapy" to treat some chronic diseases, or to carry out physical and psychological rehabilitation training for the patients; at the same time, the function of "treating the disease" is paid more attention.

Taijiquan Health Promotion Research Focus in Recent 15 Years Based on PubMed / 中国康复理论与实践

@# Objective To analyze the development trend of Taijiquan research papers in PubMed database in the past 15 years, and provide reference for the direction of scientific research. Methods Bicomb 2.0 and SPSS 20.0 software were used to systematically cluster and multidimensional scale analysis of keywords in PubMed database from 2002 to 2016, and generate knowledge maps and interpret them.Results Taijiquan exercise health promotion research hot spots in recent 15 years were breast neoplasms, depression, stress psychological, knee osteoarthritis, cognition, cognition disorders, muscle/skeletal, muscle strength, physical fitness, aging, gait, postural balance, accidental falls, exercise therapy and Parkinson disease.Conclusion Taijiquan exercise has been used as a kind of "sports therapy" to treat some chronic diseases, or to carry out physical and psychological rehabilitation training for the patients; at the same time, the function of "treating the disease" is paid more attention.

The Nordic Health Promotion Research Network (NHPRN).

The Nordic Health Promotion Research Network (NHPRN) was established in 2007 at the Nordic School of Public Health (NHV). This article aims to describe the foundation of the NHPRN, the development and the present status of the work of NHPRN. The NHPRN consists of about 50 senior and junior researchers from all Nordic countries. It is a working network that aims to develop the theoretical understanding of health promotion, to create research cooperation in health promotion from a Nordic perspective and to extend the scope of health promotion through education. Network members meet biannually to discuss and further develop research within the field and are also responsible for the Nordic conference on Health Promotion, organized every 3 years. The NHV hosted the network between 2007 and 2014; and the World Health Organisation (WHO) will assume this role in 2015.

Culture as a variable in health research: perspectives and caveats.

To augment the rigor of health promotion research, this perspective article describes how cultural factors impact the outcomes of health promotion studies either intentionally or unintentionally. It proposes ways in which these factors can be addressed or controlled in designing studies and interpreting their results. We describe how variation within and across cultures can be considered within a study, e.g. the conceptualization of research questions or hypotheses, and the methodology including sampling, surveys and interviews. We provide multiple examples of how culture influences the interpretation of study findings. Inadequately accounting or controlling for cultural variations in health promotion studies, whether they are planned or unplanned, can lead to incomplete research questions, incomplete data gathering, spurious results and limited generalizability of the findings. In health promotion research, factors related to culture and cultural variations need to be considered, acknowledged or controlled irrespective of the purpose of the study, to maximize the reliability, validity and generalizability of study findings. These issues are particularly relevant in contemporary health promotion research focusing on global lifestyle-related conditions where cultural factors have a pivotal role and warrant being understood.