Health literacy among young adults: a short survey tool for public health and health promotion research

Health literacy (HL) is context-specific. In public health and health promotion, HL in the private realm refers to individuals' knowledge and skills to prevent disease and to promote health in everyday life. However, there is a scarcity of measurement tools explicitly geared to private realm contexts. Our aim was to develop and test a short survey tool that captures different dimensions of HL in the context of family and friends. We used cross-sectional data from the Swiss Federal Surveys of Adolescents from 2010 to 2011, comprising 7983 males and 366 females between 18 and 25 years. HL was assessed through a set of eight items (self-reports). We used principal component analysis to explore the underlying factor structure among these items in the male sample and confirmatory factor analysis to verify the factor structure in the female sample. The results showed that the tested item set represented dimensions of functional, interactive and critical HL. Two sub-dimensions, understanding versus finding health-relevant information, denoted functional HL. Interactive and critical HL were each represented with two items. A sum score based on all eight items (Cronbach's α: 0.64) showed expected positive associations with own and parental education among males and females (p < 0.05). The short item set appears to be a feasible measurement tool to assess HL in the private realm. Its broader application in survey studies may help to improve our understanding of how this form of HL is distributed in the general population.

Potentials and constraints of modeling for transdisciplinary co-producing strategies for sustainable water governance

Both climate change and socio-economic development will significantly modify the supply and consumption of water in future. Consequently, regional development has to face aggravation of existing or emergence of new conflicts of interest. In this context, transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge is considered as an important means for coping with these challenges. Accordingly, the MontanAqua project aims at developing strategies for more sustainable water management in the study area Crans-Montana-Sierre (Switzerland) in a transdisciplinary way. It strives for co-producing system, target and transformation knowledge among researchers, policy makers, public administration and civil society organizations. The research process basically consisted of the following steps: First, the current water situation in the study region was investigated. How much water is available? How much water is being used? How are decisions on water distribution and use taken? Second, participatory scenario workshops were conducted in order to identify the stakeholders’ visions of regional development. Third, the water situation in 2050 was simulated by modeling the evolution of water resources and water use and by reflecting on the institutional aspects. These steps laid ground for jointly assessing the consequences of the stakeholders’ visions of development in view of scientific data regarding governance, availability and use of water in the region as well as developing necessary transformation knowledge. During all of these steps researchers have collaborated with stakeholders in the support group RegiEau. The RegiEau group consists of key representatives of owners, managers, users, and pressure groups related to water and landscape: representatives of the communes (mostly the presidents), the canton (administration and parliament), water management associations, agriculture, viticulture, hydropower, tourism, and landscape protection. The aim of the talk is to explore potentials and constraints of scientific modeling of water availability and use within the process of transdisciplinary co-producing strategies for more sustainable water governance.

Household Hardships, Public Programs, and Their Associations with the Health and Development of Very Young Children: Insights from Children’s HealthWatch

America’s low-income families struggle to protect their children from multiple threats to their health and growth. Many research and advocacy groups explore the health and educational effects of food insecurity, but less is known about these effects on very young children. Children’s HealthWatch, a group of pediatric clinicians and public health researchers, has continuously collected data on the effects of food insecurity alone and in conjunction with other household hardships since 1998. The group’s peer reviewed research has shown that a number of economic risks at the household level, including food, housing and energy insecurity, tend to be correlated. These insecurities alone or in conjunction increase the risk that a young child will suffer various negative health consequences, including increases in lifetime hospitalizations, parental report of fair or poor health,1 or risk for developmental delays.2 Child food insecurity is an incremental risk indicator above and beyond the risk imposed by household-level food insecurity. The Children’sHealthwatch research also suggests public benefits programs modify some of these effects for families experiencing hardships. This empirical evidence is presented in a variety of public venues outside the usual scientific settings, such as congressional hearings, to support the needs of America’s most vulnerable population through policy change. Children’s HealthWatch research supports legislative solutions to food insecurity, including sustained funding for public programs and re-evaluation of the use of the Thrifty Food Plan as the basis of SNAP benefits calculations. Children’s HealthWatch is one of many models to support the American Academy of Pediatrics’ call to “stand up, speak up, and step up for children.”3 No isolated group or single intervention will solve child poverty or multiple hardships. However, working collaboratively each group has a role to play in supporting the health and well-being of young children and their families. 1. Cook JT, Frank DA, Berkowitz C, et al. Food insecurity is associated with adverse health outcomes among human infants and toddlers. J Nutr. 2004;134:1432-1438. 2. Rose-Jacobs R, Black MM, Casey PH, et al. Household food insecurity: associations with at-risk infant and toddler development. Pediatrics. 2008;121:65-72. 3. AAP leader says to stand up, speak up, and step up for child health [news release]. Boston, MA: American Academy of Pediatrics; October 11, 2008. http://www2.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08childhealth.htm. Accessed January 1, 2012.

Commentary on "Household Hardships, Public Programs, and Their Associations with the Health and Development of Very Young Children: Insights from Children's HealthWatch"

This commentary, written in response to the article "Household Hardships, Public Programs, and Their Associations with the Health and Development of Very Young Children: Insights from Children's HealthWatch", highlights the importance of the research done by Children's HealthWatch in relation to childhood food insecurity. Childhood food insecurity has been linked with various adverse health effects, including undernutrition, poor or delayed child development, and social and psychological consequences. Children's HealthWatch provides important data that can be used to monitor threats to our children's well-being and address problems with effective interventions.

Mechanisms of protein regulation in rat skeletal muscle during resistance exercise and training

The cellular mechanisms through which adult rat skeletal muscle protein is regulated during resistance exercise and training was investigated. A model of non-voluntary resistance exercise was described which involves the electrically-stimulated contraction of the lower leg muscles of anesthetized rats against a weighted pulley-bar. Muscle protein synthesis rates were measured by in vivo constant infusion of $\sp3$H-leucine following a single bout of resistance exercise. Specific messenger RNA levels were determined by dot-blot hybridization analysis using $\sp{32}$P-labelled DNA probes after a single bout and multiple bouts of phasic training. The effects of phasic training on increasing skeletal muscle mass was assessed. Between 12 and 36 hours following a single resistance exercise bout (24-192 contractions), total mixed and myofibril protein synthesis rates were significantly increase (32%-65%) after concentric (gastrocnemius m.) and eccentric (tibialis anterior m.) contractions. Eccentric contractions had greater effects on myofibril synthesis with more prolonged increases in synthesis rates. Lower numbers of eccentric than concentric contractions were required to increase synthesis. Cellular RNA was increased after exercise but the relative levels of skeletal $\alpha$-actin and cytochrome c mRNAs were unchanged. Since increases in synthesis rates exceeded increases in RNA, post-transcriptional mechanisms may be primarily responsible for increased protein synthesis after a resistance exercise bout. After 10-22 weeks of phasic eccentric resistance training, muscle enlargement (16%-30%) was produced in the tibialis anterior m. after all training paradigms examined. In contrast, gastrocnemius m. enlargement after phasic concentric training occurred after moderate (24/bout) but not after high (192/bout) repetition training. The absence of muscle growth in the gastrocnemius m. after high repetition training despite increased synthesis rates after the initial bout and RNA and possibly mRNA accumulation during training suggests a role for post-translational mechanisms (protein degradation) in the control of muscle growth in the gastrocnemius m. It is concluded that muscle protein during resistance exercise and training is regulated at several cellular levels. The particular response may be influenced by the exercise intensity and duration, the training frequency and the type of contractile work (eccentric vs. concentric) performed. ^

Rezension zu: Inge Govaere and Hanns Ulrich (eds.): Intellectual Property, Public Policy and International Trade

The contemporary intellectual property rights (IPR) system is not a simple, smoothly working block of rules but is complex and full of ambiguities, and as many argue, imperfections. Some deficits relate on the one hand to the inherent centrality of authorship, originality and mercantilism to the ‘Western’ IP model, which leaves numerous non-Western, collaborative or folkloric modes of production outside the scope of protection. On the other hand, some imperfections stem from the way IPR are granted, whereby creators acquire a temporary monopoly over their works and thus exclude the public from having access to them. In this sense, it is often uncertain whether the existent IPR model appropriately reflects the precarious balance between private and public interests, and whether the best incentives to promote creativity and innovation - the initially stated objectives of intellectual property protection - are offered. The matter becomes still more complicated when one considers that the IPR system is not domestically contained but is globalised and strongly affected by rules at the regional and international levels. The question of whether the balance between private interests and public values is sustained within the international legal framework, epitomised by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is precisely the topic of the book reviewed here. Review of Intellectual Property, Public Policy, and International Trade, edited by Inge Govaere and Hanns Ullrich, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2007.

Rezension zu: Irini Katsirea, Public Broadcasting and European Law

Public broadcasting has always been a regulatory field somewhat zealously guarded within the nation states' sphere and kept willingly untouched by regional or international rules. Values inherent to the role of public broadcasting, such as cultural and national identity, social cohesion, pluralism and a sustained public sphere, were thought too critical and too historically connected with the particular society to allow any "outside" influence. Different regulatory models have emerged to reflect these specificities within the national boundaries of European countries. Yet, as media evolved technologically and economically, the constraints of state borders were rendered obsolete and the inner tension between culture and commerce of the television medium became more pronounced. This tension was only intensified with the formulation of a European Community (EC) layer of regulation, which had as its primary objective the creation of a single market for audiovisual services (or as the EC Directive beautifully put it, a "Television without Frontiers"), while also including some provisions catering for cultural concerns, such as the infamous quota system for European and independent productions. Against this backdrop, public broadcasting makes a particularly intriguing subject for a study of regulatory dilemmas of national versus supranational, integration versus intergovernmentalism, culture versus commerce, intervention versus liberalisation, and all this in the dynamic setting of contemporary media. The present paper reviews Irini Katsirea's book PUBLIC BROADCASTING AND EUROPEAN LAW and seeks to identify whether all elements of the complex governance puzzle of European public service broadcasting rules are analytically well fitted together.

Social Support at the Workplace, Motivation to Transfer, and Training Transfer: A Multi-Level Indirect Effects Model

Supervisor support, peer support and transfer motivation have been identified as important predictors for training transfer. Transfer motivation is supposed to mediate the support–training transfer relationship. Especially after team training interventions that include all team members (i.e., intact-team training), individual perception of these factors might be shared among team members. However, an integration of the team level in the training transfer process is rare, yet still needed. Analyzing 194 employees from 34 teams in the context of intact-team training interventions, we found similar relationships and processes at both levels of analysis: Social support enhances transfer motivation at the individual and team levels. Furthermore, motivation to transfer increases training transfer and serves as a connecting mechanism in the social support–training transfer link. The results underline the importance of (1) considering multiple levels in theories and research about the training transfer process and (2) ensuring the practice of individual-directed support and a shared, supportive climate within teams.

Labour Market Prospects of Swiss Career Entrants after Completion of Vocational Education and Training

This study seeks to find the reasons for the rising risk of unemployment for people who have completed basic vocational education and training (VET) in Switzerland. We focus on the long-term structural shift on the demand side of the labour market and its consequences for new entrants? chances of employment in the labour force. A detailed analysis of the development of vacancies for such ?career entrants? in the time period 2001 to 2011 suggests that neither a growing occupational mismatch nor a general shift in the level of education to the disadvantage of workers with vocational education can be made responsible for the rising unemployment of labour market entrants. Instead, the available evidence indicates that a diminishing part of the vacancies suited for VET graduates remains open to entrants because of the increasing job requirements with regard to work experience and further education. Basic vocational education and training alone is increasingly less a guarantee for a smooth entry into the working world.