Objective: To design, implement and evaluate a peer-led intervention to reduce smoking amongst secondary school students. Design: A health promotion intervention combining peer education with diffusion of innovation theory, to be rigorously evaluated by means of a cluster randomised controlled trial with concurrent process and economic…

Objective: To describe the use of "draw, describe and write", a tool for exploring how adolescents perceive and explain their understanding of the world of drugs, as used in the development of the Blueprint project. Design: A cross-sectional study using a specifically designed research tool, including drawing and open-ended questions, used with…

Objective: To investigate an existing Trust-based osteoporosis service's preventative activity, determine any issues and problems and use this data to reorganise the service, as part of a National Health Service Executive/Regional Office-commissioned and funded study. Setting: A UK Hospital Trust's Osteoporosis Service. Design & Method: A…

Teenage magazines are viewed by their readers as "trusted friends" that provide reliable information on sex and relationship issues. Agony aunts and uncles receive approximately half a million letters each year from teenagers in the UK. Objective: To understand the perceptions, pressures and needs of young girls on issues pertaining to their…

Objective: To investigate the process, implementation, and short-term outcomes of a drug education programme (SPICED) introduced in Kirklees schools, West Yorkshire. Design: A retrospective evaluation using mixed methods. Setting: Ten primary schools in West Yorkshire. Methods: Interviews with professionals, survey of parents, focus groups with…

Objective: To investigate the effect of a nutrition education intervention and four hours of related teaching on the nutrition concepts of a sample of 9 year-old children. Design: Prepost test design. Children's food classification concepts were assessed before and after the intervention and nutrition teaching. Setting: Year 4 class of a suburban…

Life expectancy in Northern Ireland continues to increase and it is expected that mortality due to heart disease, stroke and some cancers will continue to fall. The infant mortality rate, once higher is similar to that of the other UK and European countries. However, in common with neighboring countries, Northern Ireland has low levels of physical…

"Setting" A single primary school which serves a mixed socioeconomic area in the north of Scotland. "Method" Parents gave demographic details about their family and information about whether their children had been breastfed. Twenty- three children, aged 6, took part in three focus groups which were conducted by two facilitators, according to a…

There is no doubt that health promotion and health education (HP/HE) in the UK are in a crisis, in view of the limited amount of financial resources available, the reduction in services and the lack of available new specialist jobs. The Government seems to have made a political decision about the reduction (if not abolition) of HP/HE services,…

The health promotion and health education literature has references to health counselling. Yet, beyond the field of health, coaching has become a popular method to enhance and facilitate individual and group performance in business, sports, and personal areas of life. This paper focuses on the recent development of health coaching by practitioners…

Objective: To explore the impact of the school climate on adolescents' reporting of sexual harassment. Design: A quantitative survey among students in their 4th year of secondary education. Setting: Questionnaires were completed in a class setting. Method: An a-select sampling strategy was used to select 2808 students in 22 schools. Results:…

In many countries, one aspect of health education, namely child sexual abuse, has become an important issue for teachers in pre-schools, primary schools and high schools to address. In Australia, many states now have mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse by teachers to their Principals then to the police or the Department of Families.…

Objective: The common cold, known as upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), is the world's most prevalent illness. The purpose of this study was to determine if physical activity is linked to the incidence and/or duration of the common cold. Method: Undergraduate university students (n=200) were asked to complete two questionnaires. The…

Scotland has the worst health in the United Kingdom; worse than comparable areas like the industrial North East of England. Scotland's health also lags behind comparable European countries. In fact, the nearest neighbours in the health "league table" of European nations are Slovenia and Portugal. One has only a limited understanding of what has…

This short paper considers the development of an evidence-based approach to tackling health inequalities. Inequalities in health in England at the beginning of the 21st century have widened and are stark. Despite overall improvements in death rates, the growing gap between social groups means that now some parts of England have the same levels of…