Characterizing the Health of Older Rural Australians Attending Rural Events: Implications for Future Health Promotion Opportunities.

This paper describes the health of older Australians (>65 years) attending rural events to inform health promotion interventions for rural populations. This cross-sectional study collected survey data and objective health measures between 2017 and 2020 at two events held in rural New South Wales, Australia. Participants included in the analysis were adults > 65 years of age. Data included demographic and health information, anthropometric measures (height, weight, waist circumference), and dietary and physical activity data. A total of 256 people > 65 years participated. Our sample, which was mostly male (59.0%), contained people aged between 66 and 75 years (72.3%). Participants lived in either a large rural (34.0%) or small rural town (22.3%), with low levels of education (60.9% did not complete high school). Dietary quality was rated as below average. All but 17.2% of the participants reported having a health condition. The risk of a health condition was associated with increasing age, lower education, and higher waist circumference, but not remoteness. Rural events may provide an opportunity to access, engage with, and understand the health of older rural Australians, especially males. They may offer ideal contexts for health and nutrition promotion opportunities in rural areas where access to health professionals is limited.

The court of public opinion: lay perceptions of polygraph testing.

We sampled a total of 411 participants and randomly assigned them one of three brief trial vignettes that contained either no-polygraph evidence, evidence of a passed polygraph test, or evidence of a failed polygraph test. Participants rendered guilt judgments and answered a series of questions concerning the trial in particular, and polygraph tests in general. Similar to previous studies on the impact of polygraph evidence on jurors' guilt judgments, this sample of jury-eligible adults indicated that they did not find polygraph test evidence to be persuasive. Moreover, it mattered little to participants whether the results indicated the defendant passed a polygraph test, or that he failed a polygraph test. However, when our findings are compared to those of previous surveys involving experts in the field of psychophysiology, they differ in a number of important respects. The implications for decisions regarding admissibility (e.g., U.S. v. Alexander, 1975 and U.S. v. Scheffer, 1998) are discussed.