Survey of Canadian urban public health prenatal programs goals objectives, populations served and outcome measures.
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Canada↗
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Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
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[A study of the health status of the population within a program of scientific and technical cooperation of the members of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance].
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Child↗
Negative predictive value of a population-based preschool vision screening program.
BACKGROUND: The Enhanced Vision Screening Program is a population-based vision screening program that has, at present, examined 59,782 children. Its main goal is to detect amblyopia, strabismus, and high refractive errors. An average of 11,910 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-year-old children are screened yearly. The current study determines the negative predictive value of the screening program: For a subject having passed the vision screening test, what is the probability of not having amblyopia, strabismus, or high refractive errors? METHODS: Of the 11,734 subjects who passed the vision screening, 200 were randomly chosen to undergo a strictly defined gold standard examination by an orthoptist and an ophthalmologist. RESULTS: Of the 200 randomly chosen subjects, 157 underwent the gold standard evaluation. The negative predictive value of the Enhanced Vision Screening Program was 97.6% for any potentially vision-threatening ocular condition. It was 98.7% if we considered only the visually significant ocular problems that the test was designed to detect. CONCLUSION: Because the negative predictive value of the Enhanced Vision Screening Program is not 100%, some children with amblyopia, strabismus, or refractive errors are missed. Occasionally, a rare, potentially vision-threatening condition may go undetected. Parents should be made aware of this when they receive the results of the vision screening.
Child↗
Population strategies to enhance physical activity: the Minnesota Heart Health Program.
A population-wide, community-based program in cardiovascular disease prevention, the Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP), has been designed to promote more frequent and vigorous physical activity in North American communities, along with improved eating and smoking patterns. The physical activity component of this broad-based education strategy is based on the facilitation which physical activity provides to lowering of other risk characteristics for heart disease and its enhancement of other healthy behaviors and on the potential for prevention of elevated risk in the first place. The rationale for a population strategy to complement medical approaches to prevention is that exercise patterns are largely socially learned and culturally determined. The MHHP Physical Activity Program is implemented through three major education strategies: direct education, community organization, and mass communications. Early results from this 10-year project indicate that it is feasible to enter U.S. communities and to involve their leadership actively in MHHP activities of health promotion. Moreover, attitudes, knowledge, awareness, participation, and behaviors related to exercise and eating patterns appear to be changed by the program. Nevertheless, there are problems in the design, implementation, analysis and interpretation of population changes in physical activity and other health behaviors in community demonstration programs. These issues, along with their solutions, should provide useful information for medical science and for the public health about population strategies of disease prevention and health promotion.
Adolescent↗
Artificial intelligence-supported double reading in European population breast cancer screening: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective programs.
BACKGROUND: Most European population mammography screening programs rely on double reading with arbitration, a model that delivers mortality benefit but is increasingly challenged by radiologist workload, variable specificity, and interval cancers. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being evaluated to support or optimize these established European screening pathways. PURPOSE: To synthesize prospective or program-embedded evaluations of AI conducted within European-style population screening programs and to estimate exploratory program-level absolute risk differences (RDs) per 1000 examinations for cancer detection rate (CDR) and recall. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a prespecified, focused evidence synthesis of three large studies embedded within routine population screening programs operating under European-relevant workflows: MASAI (randomized AI-supported risk triage within a national program), ScreenTrustCAD (prospective paired-reader evaluation with AI as an independent reader in a double-reading framework), and PRAIM (nationwide decision-referral implementation). Outcomes were harmonized as AI-control RDs per 1000 examinations. Random-effects pooling used Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman models. For the paired-reader design, sensitivity analyses applied a Kish effective sample-size approach across plausible within-examination correlations (ρ = 0.3-0.8). Positive predictive value (PPV) and workflow/time outcomes were summarized descriptively. RESULTS: Across 597,419 examinations, the pooled CDR RD was +0.9 per 1000 (95% CI -0.0 to +1.8; I2 ≈ 12%), consistent with a modest directional increase with borderline statistical uncertainty. The pooled recall RD was -0.6 per 1000 (95% CI -3.1 to +2.1; I2 ≈ 41-43%), indicating no consistent recall increase across screening programs. Where reported, PPV was higher with AI-supported screening. Efficiency signals included 44.3% fewer total readings in MASAI and shorter reading times for AI-normal examinations in PRAIM; in PRAIM, a program-level safety-net mechanism recovered 204 cancers that would otherwise have been missed. CONCLUSION: In European population screening programs characterized by double reading and arbitration, prospective program-embedded evidence suggests that AI integration may yield a small absolute increase in cancer detection (≈1/1000) without a consistent increase in recall, alongside improved PPV and efficiency signals. These findings suggestAI primarily as a complementary reader within European screening workflows, with implementation requiring explicit quality assurance and monitoring of interval cancers and stage distribution.
Humans↗
Prevention of coronary heart disease in black adults.
Development of strategies to prevent CHD in blacks is impeded by the virtual absence of clinical trials demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of interventions in blacks. The wholesale generalization that interventions effective (or ineffective) in whites are similarly effective in blacks may risk the employment of worthless or even dangerous interventions in blacks. Using available epidemiologic data, a number of risk factors may be more important in blacks than whites by virtue of higher prevalence, increased relative risk, or both. These may include hypertension, lipoprotein (a), smoking, diabetes, and obesity. Thus, health agencies might emphasize these risk factors when developing preventive programs targeted at black populations. Prevention programs may best seek to prevent the onset of risk factors found highly prevalent in black communities, rather than the costly and side-effect-prone interventions to treat risk factors once established. Thus, there is a role for community-based as well as a high-risk approaches. The community-based approaches should seek to work with organizations such as churches, which traditionally play strong roles in the black community. Physicians treating black patients should be aware of the potentially different roles played by risk factors, and treat aggressively those individuals identified to be at high risk. Risk factor management should be emphasized, rather than reduced, in patients with already established CHD. CHD has been clearly shown to be preventable; both blacks and whites should benefit from specific interventions aimed toward this worthy goal.
Adult↗
Freedom from fat: a contemporary multi-component weight loss program for the general population of obese adults.
This report summarizes results for the first 2,037 participants in the Freedom from Fat (FFF) weight loss program. FFF combined nutrition education, a low-fat dietary pattern, exercise, behavioral self-management, and social support in a program designed to serve the general population of overweight and obese adults. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 84 and from ideal weight to massively obese. After enrolling, program participants attended professionally led weekly meetings as long as they wished. Participants were encouraged to keep daily food diaries, to reduce the proportion of calories from fat to 30% or less, to exercise at moderate intensity for 30 minutes a day 5 days a week, to keep graphic records of weight change and exercise, and to display their graphs at each weekly group meeting. Attrition rates were comparatively low for a large-scale program, with half of the participants still active in the fifth month and 22% still active after 1 year. Mean weight loss for obese participants (BMI 30 or greater) at 6 months was 7.3 kg (16.2 lb) for men and 5.3 kg (11.6 lb) for women. The best predictors of weight loss at 6 months were number of days per week in which food diaries were kept, baseline body mass index, number of minutes of exercise per week, and age.
Adult↗
A general program for estimation of haplotype frequencies from population diploid data.
The program which is written in FORTRAN estimates haplotype frequencies in two-locus and three-locus genetic systems from population diploid data. It is based on the gene counting method which leads to maximum likelihood estimates, and can be used whenever the possible antigens (one or more) on each chromosome can be specified for each person and for each locus, i.e., ABO-like systems and inclusions are permitted. The number of alleles per locus may be rather large, and both grouped and ungrouped data can be used. Log likelihoods are calculated on the basis of various assumptions, so that likelihood ratio tests can be carried out.
Chromosome Mapping↗
Effect of population screening for cancer of the uterine cervix in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Since the introduction of a population screening program for cervical cancer in 1976, more than 85% of the female population between the ages of 35 and 54 years in the region of the city of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, has been screened. At first screening, severe epithelial abnormalities were diagnosed in 4.4 per 1,000 women, at second screening, in 1.5 per 1,000; and at third screening, in 1.0 per 1,000. The population screening program led to a marked increase in the detected number of carcinomata in situ. The number of cases of squamous cell cancer diagnosed in the first screening period did not increase. Once the population was screened, the detection rate of invasive squamous cell cancer in the group of women ages 35 through 54 decreased from 18.6 per 10(5) during the period prior to the screening to 9.0 per 10(5) after the first screening and 3.3 per 10(5) after the second screening. For the women above age 54, the incidence of invasive cancer was reduced by 58% after the second screening. The number of invasive cancers diagnosed in women under age 35 remained relatively small in spite of the large number of cases of carcinoma in situ.
Adult↗
Effectiveness of rehabilitation programs on a remainder population: a retrospective analysis.
Retrospective analyses were conducted on a remainder population of 361 individuals with mental retardation at a rehabilitation institute. Program effectiveness was determined by means of aggregate and individual changes in performance on several instruments. Psychometric tests showed no significant increases in test scores whereas gains were found on all adaptive functioning instruments. Programs dealing with daily living and more conceptual material appeared to be more effective than vocational programs. One third of the remainder clients gained from the institute's programs.
Activities of Daily Living↗
Effects of biofeedback-assisted attention training in a college population.
A program of stress management employing open-focus attention-training workshops was developed at Baruch College to bring the benefits of stress reduction to students. The purpose of the research reported here was to evaluate the results of the open-focus attention-training technique. Open-focus technique without biofeedback training was used for two semesters. Biofeedback training was incorporated in the third semester. In the first study, changes in grade point average (GPA), stress-related symptoms, and physiological measures were examined. The experimental subjects' stress data for this study was reported previously (Valdés, 1985). In the second study, changes in the same variables for experimental and control subjects were evaluated. Students in the control group showed decreased GPA, while those who participated in open-focus training showed a trend toward improved GPA. Stress-related symptoms associated with anxiety and management of emotional problems showed significant posttraining improvement, as did physiological measures in all of the biofeedback modalities in which the experimental subjects were specifically trained. The results support the hypothesis that the workshops were successful in reducing stress levels, and suggest that further controlled research be conducted to verify these findings, and to identify the most effective components of the training procedure.
Achievement↗
A comprehensive approach to dental health in a school population.
A program to provide school children with dental health education and preventive services was initiated by the Boston University School of Graduate Dentistry. This program utilized several generally untapped resources. The emphasis was on classroom education using teachers who were motivated by special workshops as well as students of dental auxiliary training programs. These dental auxiliary students under the supervision of a dental health educator were used to educate the classroom teachers as well as to teach children in the classroom. Direct dental services were also provided in the program in the form of preventive services utilizing an unused dental chair available at a school.
Boston↗
Effects of maternal-fetal monitoring on pregnancy outcome in a high risk pregnant population.
A program was designed to determine the effects of monitoring all patients admitted to labor and delivery at the District of Columbia General Hospital during 1976. This paper reports the findings and discusses the value of electronic surveillance on fetal and perinatal survival.
Female↗
[An increase in the knowledgeability of the population on the problem of arterial hypertension as a result of conducting a secondary prevention program in a nonorganized rural population].
The paper is concerned with evaluating the efficacy of sanitary and health measures carried out within the framework of the program of secondary prophylaxis of arterial hypertension (AH) in an open rural population in terms of changes in the information of the community about hypertension. The program included regular radio transmissions, talks and lectures pertaining to the problems of essential hypertension prevention and treatment. During 4 years, the information of the respondents about hypertensive action of table salt increased 4-fold (from 8 to 32.3%), especially among persons suffering from AH. The number of persons who referred to overweight as one of AH causes rose 6-fold (from 2.6 to 18.1%). The information did not depend on the sex, age, or the presence of hypertensive factors in the examinees. Alterations were recorded in the attitude of the examinees to AH and its treatment: the portion of those who took hypotensive drugs increased more than 2-fold (from 10.9 to 23.4%) whereas the percentage of subjects treated successfully from 6.8 to 10.1%. The data obtained attest to a high enough efficacy of sanitary and health measures in relation to AH in the rural population.
Adult↗
The contribution of social science research to population policy and family planning program effectiveness.
Social science research has made important contributions to population policy and to the effectiveness of family planning programs. Social science concepts, theories, and methods potentially are relevant to all aspects of reproductive behavior, including actual fertility, proximate variables, and desired family size. Social science research also contributes to the understanding of the social, economic, and political institutions that potentially affect, either directly or indirectly, the whole biosocial reproductive system and family planning programs. At least as important as its specific theories and findings is the role of social science in testing how to adapt such knowledge to distinctive national and local cultural circumstances of family planning programs. A central point is that carefully monitored pilot projects are desirable before launching full-scale national programs, as well as being continuing resources for program development. The research on early programs in Asia has been important, because those programs encountered and overcame some of the presumed obstacles to new programs.
Asia↗
[Comprehensive program against chronic non-infectious diseases in basic population groups--the Belec Study. II. Program of interventions against elevated blood pressure].
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Female↗
LINKERS: a simulation programming system for generating populations with genetic structure.
Significant features are described of a Monte Carlo simulation system, LINKERS, that generates nuclear family data conforming to one locus and two loci genetic models. Software engineering techniques help to produce a user friendly environment for studies of genetic ascertainment. LINKERS' 39 code modules are maintained and optimized using VAXset. Within a VAX/VMS workstation environment LINKERS generates a useful population of 10,000 families in 1 min. An example is presented to illustrate the use of LINKERS. Generated data were analysed using the segregation program POINTER. Likelihood ratio tests showed the effects of multiple alleles, gene frequency and incorrect specification of disease prevalence.
Computer Simulation↗
[Value of the analysis of new cases of arterial hypertension in an organized population for the purpose of planning primary prevention programs].
Within the framework of the 5-year program for the control of arterial hypertension, "detriment" to the population program caused by the lack of preventive work among the so-called healthy portion of the population was estimated at a Moscow machine-building plant. The proportion of patients in whom arterial hypertension was successfully reduced or controlled was matched against the proportion of those whose arterial BP went up above the normal or marginal level during the same period. The study demonstrated the possibility of identifying high-risk individuals in need of primary preventive care within a population, and timely and purposive planning of preventive programs.
Adult↗