Biomedical subjects

Rebecca Playle

Publications and source records attributed to Rebecca Playle.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Perceptions of social capital and the built environment and mental health.

There has been much speculation about a possible association between the social and built environment and health, but the empirical evidence is still elusive. The social and built environments are best seen as contextual concepts but they are usually estimated as an aggregation of individual compositional measures, such as perceptions on trust or the desirability to live in an area. If these aggregated compositional measures were valid measures, one would expect that they would evince correlations at higher levels of data collection (e.g., neighbourhood). The aims of this paper are: (1) to investigate the factor structure of a self-administered questionnaire measuring individual perceptions of trust, social participation, social cohesion, social control, and the built environment; (2) to investigate variation in these factors at higher than the individual level (households and postcodes) in order to assess if these constructs reflect some contextual effect; and (3) to study the association between mental health, as measured by the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), and these derived factors. A cross-sectional household survey was undertaken during May-August 2001 in a district of South Wales with a population of 140,000. We found that factor analysis grouped our questions in factors similar to the theoretical ones we had previously envisaged. We also found that approximately one-third of the variance for neighbourhood quality and 10% for social control was explained at postcode (neighbourhood) level after adjusting for individual variables, thus suggesting that some of our compositional measures capture contextual characteristics of the built and social environment. After adjusting for individual variables, trust and social cohesion, two key social capital components were the only factors to show statistically significant associations with GHQ-12 scores. However, these factors also showed little variation at postcode levels, suggesting a stronger individual determination. We conclude that our results provide some evidence in support of an association between mental health (GHQ-12 scores) and perceptions of social capital, but less support for the contextual nature of social capital.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Facial attractiveness: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to investigate various factors that might affect facial attractiveness from ages 11 to 31 years. METHODS: Sixty subjects were selected from a sample participating in the longitudinal Cardiff Survey. Three-quarter-view facial photographs were taken of the subjects smiling and not smiling. Photos were taken in 1981, when the subjects were aged 11 years, and in 2001, when they were aged 31. Twelve judges used a 9-point Likert scale to evaluate overall facial attractiveness and the attractiveness of various facial features. The judges were also asked to estimate the adults' ages. Univariate and multivariate statistical tests and the generalizability theory were used. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Overall facial attractiveness does not depend on any single feature; smiling and youthful facial appearance make women look more attractive; facial attractiveness tends to decrease over time from ages 11 to 31; people tend to retain their relative levels of attractiveness throughout their life spans; orthodontic treatment improves dental appearance, but it does not necessarily make a person more attractive in the long term. Nevertheless, the positive effect of orthodontic treatment could still be observed, especially in men with lower levels of facial attractiveness in childhood.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Reliability of measuring facial morphology with a 3-dimensional laser scanning system.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this prospective clinical trial was to evaluate the reliability of a 3-dimensional facial scanning technique for the measurement of facial morphology. METHODS: A field study was conducted in 2 comprehensive schools in the South Wales region of the United Kingdom. Forty subjects, mean age 11 years 3 months, were analyzed for soft tissue changes at baseline (T1), within 3 minutes (T2), and 3 days later (T3) by using 2 commercially available Minolta Vivid 900 (Osaka, Japan) laser-scanning devices assembled as a stereo pair. Left and right images were merged to form the whole face, and these images were superimposed to assess the errors at T1 and T2, and T1 and T3. RESULTS: The results showed that premerged left and right mean shell deviations were 0.38 +/- 0.14 mm for scans at T1, 0.31 +/- 0.09 mm at T2, and 0.34 +/- 0.12 mm at T3. The mean differences of the merged composite face were 0.31 +/- 0.08 mm between T1 and T2, and 0.40 +/- 0.11 mm between T1 and T3. Paired t tests showed no significant difference between these groups (P > .05). Shell deviation facial maps of the merged scans showed that 90% of the created composite facial scans were within an error of 0.85 mm. CONCLUSIONS: Capturing the soft tissue morphology of the face with this technique is clinically reproducible within 3 minutes and 3 days of the initial records.

Cephalometry↗

PubMed2004

A comparison of a computer-based questionnaire and personal interviews in determining oral health-related behaviours.

BACKGROUND: A major challenge for survey-based research is to reduce bias. In an interview, subjects may claim more favourable behaviour to please the interviewer or comply with accepted norms. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to: (i) determine if adolescents give different answers when using a self-completed computer-administered oral health questionnaire compared with a personal interview, (ii) ascertain if responses to a face-to-face interview are dependant on whether a dentist or nonclinical researcher administered the questionnaire and (iii) examine if responses were influenced by whether they undertook the computer questionnaire first or second. METHODS: A randomized crossover design was used to investigate the responses to 15 closed questions on oral health-related practices. These were administered to 453, 12-year olds attending school dental inspections in South Wales. RESULTS: A total of 449 valid pairings of computer/interview responses were available for analysis. Responses to the questionnaire variables demonstrated good to very good levels of agreement (kappa 0.68-0.90) when comparing the face-to-face and computer-administered questionnaire. With the exception of questions on dental attendance, responses were not influenced by whether the questions were posed by the research officer or the dentist. A minimal order effect could be detected when undertaking the computer-administered questionnaire first. CONCLUSIONS: Whilst a study such as this cannot determine the true validity of the responses achieved, it is concluded that a computer-administered questionnaire, comprising closed questions, can be utilized to determine oral health-related behaviours in oral health surveys.

Adolescent↗