Co-creating a Peer Education program to improve skin health in older people from diverse communities: An innovation in health promotion.

OBJECTIVE: Chronic wounds, debilitating and costly to manage, are more common in older people. Prevention is possible through improving skin health. We developed, implemented and evaluated an innovative health promotion program to improve skin health of older adults. METHODS: A one-hour, peer education program was co-created and delivered to culturally diverse community-dwelling older people. A mixed-methods evaluation approach comprised objective measures of skin health and barrier function at commencement and six weeks posteducation, and focus groups posteducation. RESULTS: Seventy-three participants participated in the study (mean age 74.38 ± 11.80 years). Hydration significantly improved at follow-up for English speaking participants (t(27) = -2.90, P = 0.007). The majority of participants reported the education to be informative and useful in supporting behaviour changes. CONCLUSION: The peer education program improved skin hydration in older English speaking individuals. Peer education may effectively deliver health promotion information in some groups.

Acute effects of breaking up prolonged sitting on fatigue and cognition: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the acute effects of uninterrupted sitting with sitting interrupted by brief bouts of light-intensity walking on self-reported fatigue, cognition, neuroendocrine biomarkers and cardiometabolic risk markers in overweight/obese adults. DESIGN: Randomised two-condition crossover trial. SETTING: Laboratory study conducted in Melbourne, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: 19 overweight/obese adults (45-75 years). INTERVENTIONS: After an initial 2 h period seated, participants consumed a meal-replacement beverage and completed (on 2 days separated by a 6-day washout period) each condition over the next 5 h: uninterrupted sitting (sedentary condition) or sitting with 3 min bouts of light-intensity walking every 30 min (active condition). PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-reported fatigue, executive function and episodic memory at 0 h, 4 h and 7 h. SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Neuroendocrine biomarkers and cardiometabolic risk markers (blood collections at 0 h, 4 h and 7 h, blood pressure and heart rate measured hourly and interstitial glucose measured using a continuous glucose monitoring system). RESULTS: During the active condition, fatigue levels were lower at 4 h (-13.32 (95% CI -23.48 to -3.16)) and at 7 h (-10.73 (95% CI -20.89 to -0.58)) compared to the sedentary condition. Heart rate was higher at 4 h (4.47 (95% CI 8.37 to 0.58)) and at 7 h (4.32 (95% CI 8.21 to 0.42)) during the active condition compared to the sedentary condition. There were no significant differences between conditions by time for other variables. In the sedentary condition, changes in fatigue scores over time correlated with a decrease in heart rate and plasma dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) and an increase in plasma dihydroxyphenylglycol (DHPG). CONCLUSIONS: Interrupting prolonged sitting with light-intensity walking breaks may be an effective fatigue countermeasure acutely. Fatigue levels corresponded with the heart rate and neuroendocrine biomarker changes in uninterrupted sitting in this pilot study. Further research is needed to identify potential implications, particularly for the occupational health context. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ACTRN12613000137796; Results.

Patterns and correlates of accelerometer-assessed physical activity and sedentary time among colon cancer survivors.

BACKGROUND: Understanding of the physical activity and sedentary behavior of cancer survivors is limited by reliance on self-reported data. Here, we report the correlates, and patterns of accumulation, of physical activity (light, and moderate-vigorous; MVPA) and sedentary behavior, in colon cancer survivors, using accelerometer-based assessments. METHODS: Colon cancer survivors from Alberta, Canada (n = 92), and Western Australia (n = 93) (overall response rate = 21 %) wore an Actigraph(®) GT3X+ accelerometer for seven consecutive days and completed a questionnaire in 2012-2013. Accelerometer data (60 s epochs) were summarized using Freedson activity cutpoints and were adjusted for wear time. Linear regression analyses, conducted 2014-2015, examined correlates for different intensities of activity. RESULTS: Younger age, being employed, higher family income, and lower BMI were significantly correlated with MVPA, while gender, educational attainment, and BMI were correlated with light-intensity physical activity. Gender, comorbidities, and BMI were correlated with sedentary time. MVPA did not vary by day of the week, whereas the remaining time (as a sedentary/light ratio) showed significant variation, with Saturdays being less sedentary than average [corrected]. When considering time of day, we found that evenings were when the likelihood of both MVPA and sedentary time was highest. CONCLUSIONS: The low level of MVPA and high volume of sedentary time demonstrated by these objective data highlight the need for intervention in colon cancer survivors. The correlates and accumulation patterns described by this study may better inform interventions and translational research designed to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior in colon cancer survivors.

Responses to antismoking radio and television advertisements among adult smokers and non-smokers across Africa: message-testing results from Senegal, Nigeria and Kenya.

BACKGROUND: This study examined whether adaptation of existing antitobacco television and radio advertisements (ads) from high-income countries is a viable tobacco control strategy for Africa. METHODS: 1078 male and female adult smokers and non-smokers, aged 18-40 years, from major and smaller urban locations in Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal, were recruited into groups using locally appropriate convenience sampling methods and stratified by smoking status, gender, age and socioeconomic status. Eligibility criteria included age, smoking status and literacy. Each participant rated five radio and five TV antismoking ads on five-point scales, which were later aggregated into measures of perceived effectiveness, potential behaviour change and antitobacco industry sentiment/support for government actions. RESULTS: For radio ads across all three countries, two health harms-focused ads-Coughing Child followed by Suffering-had the highest odds of a positive rating on the Perceived Effectiveness measure among smokers and non-smokers. For television ads, the strong graphic ad Baby Alive tended to be rated most positively across the majority of measures by all subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: This first systematic study of tobacco control advertisements in Africa is consistent with findings from other countries, suggesting that graphic health-harms ads developed and used in other countries could also be effective in African countries. This implies that adaptation would be a successful approach in Africa, where scarce resources for tobacco control communications can be focused on advertising dissemination, saving programmes from the cost, time and technical expertise required for development of new materials.