Exploring views of members of the public and policymakers on the acceptability of population level dietary and active-travel policies: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

There is limited evidence on what shapes the acceptability of population level dietary and active-travel policies in England. This information would be useful in the decision-making process about which policies should be implemented and how to increase their effectiveness and sustainability. To fill this gap, we explored public and policymakers' views about factors that influence public acceptability of dietary and active-travel policies and how to increase public acceptability for these policies.

METHODS

We conducted online, semi-structured interviews with 20 members of the public and 20 policymakers in England. A purposive sampling frame was used to recruit members of the public via a recruitment agency, based on age, sex, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Policymakers were recruited from existing contacts within our research collaborations and via snowball sampling. We explored different dietary and active-travel policies that varied in their scope and focus. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic reflexive analysis with both inductive and deductive coding.

RESULTS

We identified four themes that informed public acceptability of dietary and active-travel policies: (1) perceived policy effectiveness, i.e., policies that included believable mechanisms of action, addressed valued co-benefits and barriers to engage in the behaviour; (2) perceived policy fairness, i.e., policies that provided everyone with an opportunity to benefit (mentioned only by the public), equally considered the needs of various population subgroups and rewarded 'healthy' behaviours rather than only penalising 'unhealthy' behaviours; (3) communication of policies, i.e., policies that were visible and had consistent and positive messages from the media (mentioned only by policymakers) and (4) how to improve policy support, with the main suggestion being an integrated strategy addressing multiple aspects of these behaviours, inclusive policies that consider everyone's needs and use of appropriate channels and messages in policy communication.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight that members' of the public and policymakers' support for dietary and active-travel policies can be shaped by the perceived effectiveness, fairness and communication of policies and provide suggestions on how to improve policy support. This information can inform the design of acceptable policies but can also be used to help communicate existing and future policies to maximise their adoption and sustainability.

Patterns of beverage purchases amongst British households: a latent class analysis

Background

Policies to tackle obesity have increasingly targeted drinks, in particular sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), as a major source of excess sugar and energy. However, precision targeting of policies is difficult as information on what types of consumers they might affect, and to what degree, is missing. To fill this gap, we categorised consumers on the basis of drink purchase behaviour and explored whether they are patterned by socio-demographic characteristics, total food purchasing and weight status.

Methods

We used latent class (LC) analysis to characterise patterns of drink purchases using the 2016 UK Kantar FMCG household purchase panel. We restricted analyses to frequent purchasers of drinks (n = 8,675) and used 6 drink categories: SSB; diet drink; fruit-/milk-based drinks; beer & cider; wine; and water. We used multinomial logistic and linear models to relate household characteristics, BMI and food purchase behaviours to LC membership.

Results

We identified 7 LCs. Disadvantaged households were more frequent in LCs with high volumes of SSBs ('SSB') and diet drinks ('Diet'). Higher BMI was more likely in LCs 'Diet' and 'SSB'. LC 'SSB' obtained higher total energy, relatively less energy from fruits and vegetables, and more energy from less healthy products, compared to others. LCs 'Diet' and 'SSB' obtained relatively more energy from sweet snacks.

Conclusions

Households who mainly purchased high volumes of SSBs or diet drinks were at greater risk of obesity and tended to purchase less healthy foods, including a high proportion of energy from sweet snacks. These households might additionally benefit from policies targeting unhealthy foods, such as sweet snacks, as a way of reducing excess energy intake.

Key messages

The effects of fiscal policies on SSB consumption is likely to vary across types of beverage consumers. Fiscal policies should be extended to sweet snacks as a major source of excess energy.

Scheduling nab-paclitaxel combined with gemcitabine as first-line treatment for metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND

Nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine (nabP+gemcitabine) offers modest survival gains for patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Sequential scheduling of nabP+gemcitabine in a PDAC mouse model improved efficacy; this hypothesis was tested in a clinical trial.

METHODS

Patients with previously untreated metastatic PDAC were randomised to receive nabP+gemcitabine administered either concomitantly on the same day, or sequentially, with gemcitabine administered 24 h after nabP. The primary outcome measure was progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary outcome measures were objective response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS), safety, quality of life (QoL) and predictive biomarkers.

RESULTS

In total, 71 patients received sequential (SEQ) and 75 concomitant (CON) treatment. Six-month PFS was 46% with SEQ and 32% with CON scheduling. Median PFS (5.6 versus 4.0 months, hazard ratio [HR] 0.67, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.47-0.95, p = 0.022) and ORR (52% versus 31%, p = 0.023) favoured the SEQ arm; median OS was 10.2 versus 8.2 months (HR 0.93, 95% CI 0.65-1.33, p = 0.70). CTCAE Grade ≥3 neutropaenia incidence doubled with SEQ therapy but was not detrimental to QoL. Strongly positive tumour epithelial cytidine deaminase (CDA) expression favoured benefit from SEQ therapy (PFS HR 0.31, 95% CI 0.13-0.70).

CONCLUSIONS

SEQ delivery of nabP+gemcitabine improved PFS and ORR, with manageable toxicity, but did not significantly improve OS.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

ISRCTN71070888; ClinialTrials.gov (NCT03529175).

"I don't know how I'm still standing" a Bakhtinian analysis of social housing and health narratives in East London

Housing is a significant determinant of health and substandard housing is a public health issue. East London has long had a shortage of social and affordable housing, worsened in recent years by a combination of stressors. In one of East London's most deprived boroughs, Newham, changes brought about by the 2011 Localism Act and the unique demands of being the host Olympic borough in 2012 have brought considerable pressures to bear on social infrastructure. This paper examines how these pressures were experienced by local residents via their narratives of social housing and health. The data reported here are from a qualitative study comprising two waves of data collection. Narrative family interviews and go-along interviews were conducted with 40 Newham residents at wave one and 28 at wave two. A narrative analysis with a Bakhtinian interpretation was undertaken. This revealed that residents framed experiences of social housing in terms of an inherent system-level ideology based on notions of need and waiting. A particularly striking feature of this ideology was the extent to which descriptions of ill health and impairment were implicated in constructions of housing need; participants directly attributed a range of health complaints to their housing predicaments, including stress, depression, cancer scares, panic attacks and loss of sleep. Understanding the contested ideology of social housing can illuminate both the dynamic processes of social exclusion and the ways in which its subjects seek to resist it.

[Same words, different meanings: How epidemiological terminology struggles with population health intervention research]

Public health research differs from clinical epidemiological research in that its focus is primarily on the population level social and structural determinants of individual health and the interventions that might ameliorate them, rather than having a primary focus on individual-level risks. It is typically concerned with the proximal and distal causes of health problems, and their location within complex systems, more than with single exposures. Thus, epidemiological terms and concepts may have very different implications when used in the context of population health. This paper considers some key differences in relation to terms like 'population', 'baseline', 'control group' 'outcome' and 'adverse effects'. Even the concept of an 'intervention' often needs careful handling. The paper concludes that there is a need for an expanded, and more realistic use of these terms in the population health intervention research context.

Oesophageal Chemoradiotherapy in the UK--current practice and future directions

The SCOPE 1 trial closed to recruitment in early 2012 and has demonstrably improved the quality of UK radiotherapy. It has also shown that there is an enthusiastic upper gastrointestinal clinical oncology community that can successfully complete trials and deliver high-quality radiotherapy. Following on from SCOPE 1, this paper, authored by a consensus of leading UK upper gastrointestinal radiotherapy specialists, attempts to define current best practice and the questions to be answered by future clinical studies. The two main roles for chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in the management of potentially curable oesophageal cancer are definitive (dCRT) and neoadjuvant (naCRT). The rates of local failure after dCRT are consistently high, showing the need to evaluate more effective treatments, both in terms of optimal local and systemic therapeutic components. This will be the primary objective of the next planned UK dCRT trial and here we discuss the role of dose escalation and systemic therapeutic options that will form the basis of that trial. The publication of the Dutch 'CROSS' trial of naCRT has shown that this pre-operative approach can both be given safely and offer a significant survival benefit over surgery alone. This has led to the development of the UK NeoSCOPE trial, due to open in 2013. There will be a translational substudy to this trial and currently available data on the role of biomarkers in predicting response to therapy are discussed. Postoperative reporting of the pathology specimen is discussed, with recommendations for the NeoSCOPE trial. Both of these CRT approaches may benefit from recent developments, such as positron emission tomography/computed tomography and four-dimensional computed tomography for target volume delineation, planning techniques such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy and 'type b' algorithms and new treatment verification methods, such as cone-beam computed tomography. These are discussed here and recommendations made for their use.

Does greener mean thinner? Associations between neighbourhood greenspace and weight status among adults in England

OBJECTIVE

To investigate associations between neighbourhood greenspace and weight status, and to explore the contribution of physical activity to these associations.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional observational study over two time-periods.

SUBJECTS

Participants were adults (aged 18 years+) in from a nationally representative sample of the English population for the time periods 2000-2003 (n=42,177) and 2004-2007 (n=36,959).

MEASUREMENTS

Weight status was defined as body mass index (BMI) category according to WHO classification. Neighbourhood greenspace was measured using the Generalised Land use Database for England that defines greenspace as parks, open spaces and agricultural land, excluding domestic gardens. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between neighbourhood greenspace and BMI and, in eligible sub-samples, to investigate the contribution of total physical activity to these. All models were adjusted for age, sex, social class, economic activity, neighbourhood income deprivation and urban/rural status.

RESULTS

In 2000-2003 there was a counterintuitive association between greenspace and BMI. Residence in the greenest areas was significantly associated with increases in overweight (12%) and obesity (23%). In 2004-2007, there was a small protective effect of greenspace for those living in the greenest areas, but this was not statistically significant. Markers of total physical activity did not attenuate associations. Tests for interactions with urban/rural status confirmed that significant associations between neighbourhood greenspace and obesity were only present in urban areas in 2000-2003.

CONCLUSION

Better evidence for the utility of greenspace in the prevention of weight gain is required before greenspace interventions are developed.

A transdiagnostic investigation of 'theory of mind' and 'jumping to conclusions' in patients with persecutory delusions

BACKGROUND

A tendency to make hasty decisions on probabilistic reasoning tasks and a difficulty attributing mental states to others are key cognitive features of persecutory delusions (PDs) in the context of schizophrenia. This study examines whether these same psychological anomalies characterize PDs when they present in the context of psychotic depression.

METHOD

Performance on measures of probabilistic reasoning and theory of mind (ToM) was examined in five subgroups differing in diagnostic category and current illness status.

RESULTS

The tendency to draw hasty decisions in probabilistic settings and poor ToM tested using story format feature in PDs irrespective of diagnosis. Furthermore, performance on the ToM story task correlated with the degree of distress caused by and preoccupation with the current PDs in the currently deluded groups. By contrast, performance on the non-verbal ToM task appears to be more sensitive to diagnosis, as patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders perform worse on this task than those with depression irrespective of the presence of PDs.

CONCLUSIONS

The psychological anomalies associated with PDs examined here are transdiagnostic but different measures of ToM may be more or less sensitive to indices of severity of the PDs, diagnosis and trait- or state-related cognitive effects.

The development of a healthy eating indicator shopping basket tool (HEISB) for use in food access studies—identification of key food items

Objectives

To develop an objective, nutrient-based, healthy eating indicator shopping basket (HEISB) tool for use in studies of access to healthy food.

Design

Tool development used a literature search to identify previous practice, web information on current definition of healthy foods by the UK Food Standards Agency, and population-based dietary surveys to identify culturally acceptable foods. These findings were then appraised with respect to practical fieldwork considerations.

Setting

The review took account of surveys undertaken in a range of geographical areas.

Results

Previous tools have varied in the foods selected and the rationale for inclusion. Most have considered nutritional composition but no systematic definition has been used and foods have been subjectively classified as ‘less healthy’ or ‘more healthy’. Recent UK work on nutrient profiling enabled individual food items to be objectively assessed for inclusion. Data from national food surveys enabled commonly consumed and culturally acceptable foods to be identified. Practical considerations included item use in meals, convenience, price, and fieldwork constraints. Other issues including health and price discriminators as well as regional preferences were considered. The final HEISB tool comprised 35 items within the following categories – 17 from fruit and vegetables, nine from potatoes, bread and cereal, five from fish/meats, three from dairy, and one from fatty and sugary foods.

Conclusions

The tool provides a rational basis for examining access and availability of healthy foods in cross-sectional and longitudinal retail and consumer studies.

Natural experiments: an underused tool for public health?

Policymakers and public health researchers alike have demanded better evidence of the effects of interventions on health inequalities. These calls have been repeated most recently in the UK in the final Wanless report, which spoke of the "almost complete lack of an evidence base on the cost-effectiveness of public health interventions", and pointed more generally to the limited evidence base for public health policy and practice. Wanless and others have suggested that the gaps may be partially filled by exploiting the opportunities offered by "natural experiments", such as changes in employment opportunities, housing provision, or cigarette pricing. Natural experiments have an important contributions to make within the health inequalities agenda. First, they can play an important role in investigating the determinants of health inequalities. Second, they can assist in the identification of effective interventions, an area where it is widely acknowledged that the evidence-base is currently sparsely populated. This paper discusses some of the benefits and limitations of using this type of evidence, drawing on two ongoing quasi-experimental studies as examples.

Non-smokers seeking help for smokers: a preliminary study

OBJECTIVES

To examine the phenomenon of non-smokers spontaneously taking action to seek help for smokers; to provide profiles of non-smoking helpers by language and ethnic groups.

SETTING

A large, statewide tobacco quitline (California Smokers' Helpline) in operation since 1992 in California, providing free cessation services in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

SUBJECTS

Callers between August 1992 and September 2005 who identified themselves as either white, black, Hispanic, American Indian, or Asian (n = 349,110). A subset of these were "proxies": callers seeking help for someone else. For more detailed analysis, n = 2143 non-smoking proxies calling from October 2004 through September 2005.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Proportions of proxies among all callers in each of seven language/ethnic groups; demographics of proxies; and proxies' relationships to smokers on whose behalf they called.

RESULTS

Over 22 000 non-smoking proxies called. Proportions differed dramatically across language/ethnic groups, from mean (+/-95% confidence interval) 2.7 (0.3)% among English-speaking American Indians through 9.3 (0.3)% among English-speaking Hispanics to 35.3 (0.7)% among Asian-speaking Asians. Beyond the differences in proportion, however, remarkable similarities emerged across all groups. Proxies were primarily women (79.2 (1.7)%), living in the same household as the smokers (65.0 (2.1)%), and having either explicit or implicit understandings with the smokers that calling on their behalf was acceptable (90.0 (1.3)%).

CONCLUSIONS

The willingness of non-smokers to seek help for smokers holds promise for tobacco cessation and may help address ethnic and language disparities. Non-smoking women in smokers' households may be the first group to target.

Gender differences in the associations between health and neighbourhood environment

Multiple deprivation indicators are frequently used to capture the characteristics of an area. This is a useful approach for identifying the most deprived areas, and summary indices are good predictors of mortality and morbidity, but it remains unclear which aspects of the residential environment are most salient for health. A further question is whether the most important aspects vary for different types of residents. This paper focuses on whether associations with neighbourhood characteristics are different for men and women. The sociopolitical and physical environment, amenities, and indicators of economic deprivation and affluence were measured in neighbourhoods in the UK, and their relationship with self-rated health was investigated using multilevel regression models. Each of these contextual domains was associated with self-rated health over and above individual socioeconomic characteristics. The magnitude of the association was larger for women in each case. Statistically significant interactions between gender and residential environment were found for trust, integration into wider society, left-wing political climate, physical quality of the residential environment, and unemployment rate. These findings add to the literature indicating greater effects of non-work-based stressors for women and highlight the influence of the residential environment on women's health.

Prenatal and perinatal factors in the etiology of cerebral palsy

Among 19,044 children born to mothers with monitored pregnancies and followed medically for at least 5 years, 41 (0.2%) had cerebral palsy that was not the result of a progressive disease or of a neural tube defect. All children without cerebral palsy were entered as controls subjects in the analysis. Significant prenatal or gestational predictors of cerebral palsy were a severe or nonsevere birth defect other than cerebral palsy or its sequelae, low birth weight, low placental weight, abnormal fetal position, and premature separation of the placenta. Maternal antecedents of cerebral palsy were unusually long or unusually short intervals between pregnancies and unusually long menstrual cycles. Perinatal risk factors were delayed crying as a measure of birth asphyxia and abnormal delivery. Children who had seizures within 48 hours of birth were at high risk for the development of cerebral palsy. Seventy-eight percent of children with cerebral palsy did not have birth asphyxia, and the 22% who did had other prenatal risk factors that may have compromised their recovery.