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Biomedical subjects

W L Beery

Publications and source records attributed to W L Beery.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

The Kaiser Family Foundation Community Health Promotion Grants Program: findings from an outcome evaluation.

OBJECTIVES: To present results from an outcome evaluation of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grants Program (CHPGP) in the West, which represented a major community-based initiative designed to promote improved health by changing community norms, environmental conditions, and individual behavior in 11 western communities. METHODS: The evaluation design: 14 randomly assigned intervention and control communities, 4 intervention communities selected on special merit, and 4 matched controls. Data for the outcome evaluation were obtained from surveys, administered every two years at three points in time, of community leaders and representative adults and adolescents, and from specially designed surveys of grocery stores. Outcomes for each of the 11 intervention communities were compared with outcomes in control communities. RESULTS: With the exception of two intervention communities-a largely Hispanic community and a Native American reservation-we found little evidence of positive changes in the outcomes targeted by the 11 intervention communities. The programs that demonstrated positive outcomes targeted dietary behavior and adolescent substance abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Improvement of health through community-based interventions remains a critical public health challenge. The CHPGP, like other prominent community-based initiatives, generally failed to produce measurable changes in the targeted health outcomes. Efforts should focus on developing theories and methods that can improve the design and evaluation of community-based interventions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Managed care and public health: building a partnership.

Critics today charge that managed care organizations, intent on reducing costs to ensure survival and profitability, have forsaken public health. In fact, managed care and public health face common challenges and share common interests. Public health problems ultimately affect managed care enrollees and increase the cost of their care. Managed care organizations, then, must help reduce community-wide health risks. Public health agencies, traditionally responsible for population health, today face serious challenges due to budget reductions and public indifference. The article to follow proposes a model for mutually beneficial collaboration between managed care and public health. Programs linking managed care with public health in the Puget Sound area illustrate this model's feasibility and value.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

A modified health risk appraisal as a component of a senior health promotion program.

Because of their comprehensive service capabilities and traditional focus on prevention, HMOs have an outstanding potential for contributing to health promotion and disease prevention among special populations. But HMOs must acknowledge the special needs of key groups and modify traditional offerings accordingly. This article describes the use of the health risk appraisal (HRA) in a program, A Healthy Future, aimed at promoting health and preventing disease among elders. Unlike ¿standard¿ HRAs, this program developed questions of special pertinence to elders and used face-to-face, human contact for communicating results. Most important, the program linked the HRA to primary care and to interventions particularly useful and acceptable to elders.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Health care providers and violence: opportunities for action.

Staff at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound have undertaken numerous strategies and community alliances in an effort to decrease violence in their community. Beginning with pilot programs and interventions for their own providers and enrollees, programs now focus on strengthening the community, controlling firearms, and supporting youth.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed1995

Stop violence now.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed1993

Group Health Cooperative's community services initiative.

Service to the broader community is an important component of Group Health Cooperative's (GHC's) tradition, values, and mission. The role and potential of community services in a staff model HMO requires consensus, careful planning and communication, and attention to results. This paper describes GHC's efforts to define, implement, and sustain its community services initiative.

Community Health Services↗
PubMed1991

The evaluation of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grant Program: design.

The Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grant Program (CHPGP) provides funding and technical assistance in support of community-based efforts to prevent major health problems. The first phase of the program was implemented in 11 communities in the western United States. This paper describes the evaluation design of the CHPGP in the West, the methods of data collection, and the baseline comparability of intervention and control communities. Major features of the evaluation design include: (1) the randomization of qualified communities making application into funded and unfunded comparison groups; (2) a second set of matched control communities for some intervention sites; (3) data gathering through repeated surveys of community residents (probability samples of adults and adolescents) and institutions (health-related organizations and randomly sampled grocery stores and restaurants); and (4) the use of secondary data to monitor health events. Selected baseline data show that intervention and control communities differ in racial/ethnic composition, but relevant health behaviors and ratings of community activation for health promotion appear comparable.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Health risk appraisal: review of evidence for effectiveness.

Since its introduction some two decades ago, health risk appraisal (HRA) has become a standard offering in the health promotion repertoire. The technique's distinctive feature is its use of epidemiologic data to generate quantitative risk messages for the client. Yet despite the dedication and considerable investments that have gone into HRA's development, dissemination, and use, there is only limited empirical evidence that these quantitative risk messages have any effect on clients. There do not appear to be any formal studies of HRA's effect on participation in health promotion programs, although increasing recruitment is regarded as a major benefit of using HRA. There are few indications of HRA effects on health beliefs. Most positive reports of effects on behavior change come from uncontrolled studies; several randomized controlled trials have yielded ambiguous findings. Virtually no data exist concerning the impact of the quantitative risk messages that distinguish HRA from other assessment techniques and that have motivated the substantial efforts toward developing and refining HRA. HRA has evident appeal and is probably a useful health education device for middle-class, middle-aged, nonminority clients. It may well have desirable effects on health-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors when accompanied by counseling or education, but available evidence has not established its effectiveness. Given the difficulty of obtaining definitive evidence of the effectiveness of HRA and specifically of its use of quantitative risk projections, the need for such evidence is debatable. An adequately funded and reviewed research program to examine whether projections of absolute risk affect knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intention to change is recommended as the most fruitful next step. Epidemiologically based HRA procedures that provide feedback in terms of qualitative statements or relative risk may be a promising approach to prospective health assessment.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1982

An assessment of health hazard/health risk appraisal.

A state-of-the-art review of a widely-used health promotion technique, the health hazard/health risk appraisal (HHA/HRA), was conducted. The review included preparing a 212-item annotated bibliography, compiling an inventory of 217 programs that have used HHA/HRA, holding discussions with HHA/HRA developers and users, conducting formal site visits to 15 HHA/HRA programs, and consultation with experts on epidemiology, biostatistics, and behavioral science as well as developers and users of HHA/HRA. Programs use HHA/HRA primarily as a promotional device, as a tool for structuring education about health-related behaviors, and as a motivational device for stimulating behavioral change. The scientific basis for HHA/HRA risk predictions is problematic, but their arithmetic imprecision is of less concern than insufficiency of the scientific evidence for certain behavioral recommendations, and inaccuracies in client-supplied data. Widely-held beliefs in HHA/HRA's efficacy for motivating behavioral change cannot be substantiated from available evidence, nor can the assumed absence of adverse effects. The importance of this particular health promotion technique appears to have been exaggerated.

Evaluation Studies as Topic↗
PubMed1976

The role of the health facilitator in community health education.

A community health education program has been established by the Department of Community Health Sciences of Duke University Medical Center in two target areas of Durham County, North Carolina. The program trains unpaid lay people, "health facilitators", to whom others already turn for help, to increase their competency for advising and referring community residents to appropriate community resources. Several methods for identifying potential health facilitators have been developed. Evaluation of the role of health facilitators hinges upon designing measures to demonstrate their existence in the community and the impact that they make. To be successful, the training of health facilitators should result in improving the quality of the advice they give their fellows. It is also important to assess the cultural acceptability of the facilitators' advice and to ensure that their helping role in the community is not disturbed by the possible professionalization of their role due to the training program.

Adolescent↗