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Biomedical subjects

Helen Darling

Publications and source records attributed to Helen Darling.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Brief report: Disposable income, and spending on fast food, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling by New Zealand secondary school students.

We describe self-reported sources of income and expenditure, and the association between part-time employment and spending on fast food, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling for a sample of 3434 New Zealand (NZ) secondary school students (mean age 15.0 years). Disposable income was usually received from parents and guardians, but nearly 40% of students also reported receiving money from part-time employment. The proportion of students employed increased as socioeconomic rating increased, and was associated with increased purchasing of fast food and alcohol, and increased spending on cigarettes and gambling. Spending by youth has obvious public health implications, particularly when it is concentrated on products that have a negative health impact.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Is there a relation between school smoking policies and youth cigarette smoking knowledge and behaviors?

To comply with workplace legislation, New Zealand schools are required to have policies regarding tobacco smoking. Many schools also have policies to prevent tobacco use by students, including education programmes, cessation support and punishment for students found smoking. This paper investigated the associations between school policies and the prevalence of students' cigarette smoking. Furthermore, we investigated the association between school policy and students' tobacco purchasing behavior, knowledge of health effects from tobacco use and likelihood of influencing others not to smoke. Data were obtained from a self-report survey administered to 2,658 New Zealand secondary school students and staff from 63 schools selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Components of school policy were not significantly associated with smoking outcomes, health knowledge or health behavior, and weakly related to a punishment emphasis and students advising others to not smoke. Similarly, weak associations were found between not advising others to not smoke and policies with a punishment emphasis as well as smoke-free environments. The results suggest that having a school tobacco policy was unrelated to the prevalence of tobacco use among students, tobacco purchasing behavior and knowledge of the negative health effects of tobacco.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Access to tobacco products by New Zealand youth.

AIMS: To describe the sources of cigarettes for under-age youth who had smoked in the previous month, the frequency of their purchases and the revenue generated. METHODS: A self-report questionnaire was administered to 3434 secondary school students from 82 schools, randomly selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. RESULTS: Over one-third of the students who smoked had purchased tobacco products from commercial sources in the month before the survey; most frequently from dairies and service stations. For more than one-third of smokers (35.7%), being younger than 18 years was not a barrier to purchasing tobacco products. During 2002, the retail value of tobacco sales to those 14-16 years, alone, was estimated to be in excess of 18 million dollars, with around 12.5 million dollars of this going to the Government as taxes. CONCLUSIONS: Policies that restrict youth access to tobacco products can only be effective if they are rigorously enforced. Many young New Zealanders have no difficulty in purchasing tobacco products, thereby generating significant revenue. Total sales to all smokers under 18 years would be likely to exceed of 24 million dollars, with around 17 million dollars in taxes. Current legislation and enforcement is not a sufficient deterrent to ensure retailer compliance with age restrictions. It would be appropriate to use at least some of the revenue from under-age sales to fund health promotion programmes to reduce tobacco smoking and other health-compromising behaviours among youth. Nationally collated data on monitoring visits, prosecutions, and fines for under-age sales are currently not readily available, thereby limiting opportunities for evaluation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Healthcare cost crisis and quality gap: our national dilemma.

Actions needed to achieve affordable, high-quality health care: make the healthcare system transparent; standardize information and reporting on costs, quality, and patient safety; make sure consumers have a financial stake in care decisions.

Cost Control↗
PubMed2004

Interest and participation in selected sports among New Zealand adolescents.

AIM: The current study aims to describe participation and interest in 18 selected popular sports among a large sample of New Zealand adolescents with the goal of identifying opportunities for increasing youth participation in physical activity. METHODS: Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to select 82 secondary schools and classes of Year 10 and 12 students within schools from six geographical regions throughout New Zealand. Students completed self-administered written questionnaires. RESULTS: The school response rate was 58%, with physical activity data available for 1730 females and 1704 males, including 637 students who self-identified as Maori. The greatest gaps between expressed interest and actual participation were reported for rugby union, rugby league, basketball, soccer and surfing (among both sexes); dance and volleyball (among females); and skateboarding (among males). When diversity of participation was modelled, increased diversity was associated with being male, having an income from part-time work, and having greater diversity of interest in the selected sports. CONCLUSION: For several sports there are substantial groups of young people who express interest but do not participate. The challenge for public health is to turn this interest into increased participation in health-promoting physical activity--by providing appropriate opportunities and support for participation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Smoke-free schools? Results of a secondary school smoking policies survey 2002.

AIM: To describe the cigarette-smoking policies of a sample of New Zealand secondary schools. METHODS: Schools randomly selected from six geographical regions for participation in the Health Sponsorship Council's 2002 Youth Lifestyle Study (YLS) were invited to also participate in the School Smoking Policies Survey (SSPS). RESULTS: Eighty one of 82 schools responded (response rate 98.8%); 64 schools (79.0%) provided copies of smoking policies. Of the schools that provided policies, only 31 (50.8%) were totally smoke free, ie, banned smoking 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Five schools (8.2%) were both smoke free and fully compliant with existing legislation. Seventy eight schools (96.3%) provided education about smoking and imposed sanctions on students caught smoking. Most respondents (74.1%) considered school staff would support proposed changes to the Smoke-free Environments Act that would make all school buildings and grounds totally smoke free. CONCLUSIONS: Most secondary schools are not smoke free, but most staff are likely to support smoke-free status. Existing inconsistency among educational messages, school practice and staff actions may undermine tobacco-smoking-prevention efforts. Proposed strengthening of smoke-free legislation is both timely and necessary to ensure that all New Zealand students are provided with totally smoke-free school environments, consistent with health education messages.

Data Collection↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Employment-based health benefits and public-sector coverage: opportunity for leadership.

In this commentary, Helen Darling, speaking from the large-employer perspective, responds to James Robinson's paper on the mature health insurance industry, which faces declining opportunities with employer-based health benefits and growing but less appealing public-sector opportunities for management and other services. The similar needs of public and private employers and payers provide an opportunity for leadership, accelerating innovation and using value-added services to improve safety, quality, and efficiency of health care for all.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Health care cost drivers.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.↗