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Biomedical subjects

C Q Porter

Publications and source records attributed to C Q Porter.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Self-help quit smoking interventions: effects of self-help materials, social support instructions, and telephone counseling.

Smokers requesting self-help materials for smoking cessation (N = 2,021) were randomized to receive (a) an experimental self-quitting guide emphasizing nicotine fading and other nonaversive behavioral strategies, (b) the same self-quitting guide with a support guide for the quitter's family and friends, (c) self-quitting and support guides along with four brief counselor calls, or (d) a control guide providing motivational and quit tips and referral to locally available guides and programs. Subjects were predominantly moderate to heavy smokers with a history of multiple previous quit attempts and treatments. Control subjects achieved quit rates similar to those of smokers using the experimental quitting guide, with fewer behavioral prequitting strategies and more outside treatments. Social support guides had no effect on perceived support for quitting or on 8- and 16-month quit rates. Telephone counseling increased adherence to the quitting protocol and quit rates.

Behavior Therapy

Productivity and selected indicators of care in maternity and infant care and children and youth projects according to sponsorship.

Bureau Common Reporting Requirements (BCRR) data tapes for Fiscal Year 1980 were analyzed to determine whether the type of sponsoring agency influenced the productivity or indicators of care of Maternity and Infant Care and Children and Youth Projects. Sponsors were classified as either health department or non-health department, health department or major medical center, or public or private in three separate sets of analyses. Some of these analyses indicated that special projects that were either health department or public agency sponsored were more likely to have more non-medical patient encounters and more health education and social work staff for a given level of expenditures. Although publicly sponsored projects employed fewer physician equivalents than did the non-public projects, those physicians were more productive. Despite these differences in encounters, staffing, and utilization of physicians, there were no differences in available measures of the process of care between categories of projects in any of the analyses.

Child

Poverty, health services, and health status in rural America.

Access to health services for everyone has been a major policy goal in the United States: inequitable access is assumed to lead to inequitable health status, particularly for low-income groups. A sophisticated model of the relation between poverty, health care needs, service use, and health outcomes is used to analyze cross-sectional data on 7,823 adults from 36 rural communities. Improved access and use are helpful, but evidence clearly indicates that combined health and social initiatives will be necessary to reduce inequalities in health status.

Cross-Sectional Studies

The prevalence and persistence of group B streptococcal colonization among hospital personnel.

A prospective study was performed to determine the prevalence and persistence of group B streptococcal colonization among obstetric (high-risk) and nonobstetric (low-risk) personnel. Seventy-four individuals participated in the study and the following sites were sampled: throat, rectum, vagina (females) and anterior urethra (males). The overall colonization rate was 32.4% and no statistical difference was found between high- and low-risk groups. The most frequently recovered serotypes were type III (37.5%) and type II/Ic (33.3%). Individuals older than 30 years were more likely to carry type II/Ic, whereas personnel in their twenties were most frequently colonized with type III. The rectum was the most frequently colonized site (83.3%). The vagina/urethra was colonized in 62.5% and the throat in 8.4% of carriers. Twenty-three culture-positive individuals were recultured from all sites three to six months later and persistent colonization was found in 56.5%. There was no statistical difference in persistence between the high- and low-risk groups. Type III carriers tended to become culture-negative, whereas type II/Ic carriers were significantly more likely to remain colonized with group B streptococci.

Adult