SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE OF THE MONTH
Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure
Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures. This paper estimate the annual and lifetime medical costs attributable to obesity, to compare those to similar costs attributable to smoking, and to discuss the implications for prevention.
Making Europe Health Literate by 2025 – Seven Actions to Promote Health Literacy and Self-Care in the Digital Era
Low health literacy is an important barrier for successful self-management. These policy recommendations set out to engage citizens, policymakers, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders in taking active steps to achieve the ambitious goal of making Europe health literate by 2025.
Obesity prevention and the role of hospital and community-based health services: a scoping review
While clinical guidelines focus on the role of primary healthcare in obesity prevention, what is the role of hospital and community-based health services in adult obesity prevention? This scoping review improves our understanding by examining what the published literature indicates on this matter in order to map the evidence and identify gaps in existing research.
Extensions of the probabilistic ranking metrics of competing treatments in network meta‐analysis to reflect clinically important relative differences on many outcomes
To reflect clinically important relative differences on many outcomes, the paper advances the current ranking methods by extending the P-score method. Network meta-analysis is also applied in COMPAR-EU to analyse the effectiveness of self-management interventions.
Social network influences and the adoption of obesity-related behaviours in adults: a critical interpretative synthesis review
Obesity is a key risk factor for developing a long-term condition and a leading cause of mortality globally. But how do social network properties and processes together with environmental-difference effects influence the adoption of (un)healthy obesity-related behaviours in adults?
Criteria for Judging the Quality of Patient Decision Aids
There is a vast number of patient decision aids available developed by many different individuals and groups around the world. The International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration established an internationally approved set of criteria to help people determine the quality of patient decision aids.
Organizational- and system-level characteristics that influence implementation of shared decision-making and strategies to address them – a scoping review
Shared decision-making (SDM) is poorly implemented in routine care, despite being promoted by health policies. Scholl et al. identified organizational- and system-level characteristics that are likely to influence the implementation of SDM, and described strategies to address them.
Effectiveness of a Community Health Worker Intervention Among African American and Latino Adults With Type 2 Diabetes
The patient’s self-management from specific ethnic groups need culturally tailored interventions to be successful. The study of Spencer et al. shows the role of community health workers in this endeavor. By conducting subgroup analyses, COMPAR-EU will identify the most effective interventions based on the specific patient´s needs.
Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions
To support informed and shared decision-making in healthcare, decision aids are used before, during, or after clinical encounters. This review by Légaré assed the effects of decision aids that support patients find the treatment or screening decision consistent with their informed values. Very important insights as COMPAR-EU will develop decision aids adapted to the needs of a wide range of end users.