Background: Melanoma can be curable if detected early. One component of detecting melanoma is an awareness of the important features of the disease. It is currently not clear which features the community view as indicative of melanoma. Objective: To investigate which features of the skin members of an urban community believe may indicate skin…

A number of learning-based interventions for problem drinking have emphasized the importance of behavioral self-control skills to help manage responses to high-risk cues. Self-management interventions typically have been based on the premise that effective self-regulation involves the use of conscious, controlled strategies to override habitual…

Youth use of cigars, bidis, and kreteks has spread as youth cigarette use has declined. This study investigates young people's attitudes toward and beliefs about these alternative tobacco products. The study used data from a convenience sample survey of 5,016 7th-through 12th-grade students in Massachusetts. The cigar attitudes receiving the…

This article describes two models for thinking about the purposes of health education--a medical model and an education model--and traces how concerns about the validity of research have driven preference for the medical model. In the medical model, the purpose of health education is to develop effective interventions that will prevent people from…

The purpose of this study was to describe the ambulatory physical activity of a sample of college students. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in which students (N = 441; males: n = 204, age = 20.20 plus or minus 1.99, BMI = 25.19 plus or minus 4 kg/m[superscript 2]; females: n = 237, age = 19.92 [plus or minus] 1.64, BMI = 22.91…

Context: Every social group shares beliefs about health and illness. Knowledge and understanding of these health beliefs are essential for education programs to address health promotion and illness prevention. Purpose: This analysis describes the diabetes Explanatory Models of Illness (EMs) of low-income, rural, white Southerners who have not been…

Women in substance abuse treatment often have co-occurring mental health disorders and a history of trauma; they are also at high risk for HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases via unprotected sex. A quasi-experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of trauma-enhanced substance abuse treatment combined with HIV/AIDS prevention…

This study investigated peer selection and socialization effects on sexual behavior and attitudes using 1,350 15- to 18-year-old students participating in two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Regarding socialization effects, friends' intercourse without condoms predicted later individual intercourse without condoms…

To curb the epidemic of obesity in the United States, revised Medicare policy allows support for efficacious obesity treatments. This review summarizes the evidence from rigorous randomized trials (9 lifestyle trials, 5 drug trials, and 2 surgical trials) on the efficacy and risk-benefit profile of lifestyle, drug, and surgical interventions aimed…

Background: An instrument assessing smoking-cessation-specific parenting was developed and tested in relation to a) the pros of smoking and quitting and self-efficacy to resist smoking, and b) adolescent readiness to quit. Methods: Cross-sectional survey data from 998 Dutch adolescents who smoked regularly were used to perform structural equation…

Background: Age-adjusted cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rates for Hispanics are lower than for non-Hispanics. However, CVD is the leading cause of death among Hispanics, and there is an increasing heart health problem among this population. One strategy for preventing CVD is the use of community health workers (CHWs). A CHW is a member of…

This meta-analysis examines whether exposure to HIV-prevention interventions follows self-validation or risk-reduction motives. The dependent measures used in the study were enrolling in an HIV-prevention program and completing the program. Results indicated that first samples with low prior condom use were less likely to enroll than samples with…

Peer sexual health education programs are widespread on college campuses, but little research has assessed the effect of these programs on the peer educators. This study employed a repeated measures design to examine changes over the academic quarter in the knowledge, counseling self-efficacy, and sexual behavior of 70 college students enrolled in…

A classroom-based activity was created to help undergraduate students in a course about the HIV epidemic explore and better understand the nature and scope of anti-HIV stigma. The activity asks students to assess the extent of their sympathy for several people living with HIV disease when given only a brief statement about how each person became…

Although there is a large and growing literature on tailored print health behavior change interventions, it is currently not known if or to what extent tailoring works. The current study provides a meta-analytic review of this literature, with a primary focus on the effects of tailoring. A comprehensive search strategy yielded 57 studies that met…