Evaluation of a Sparkling Water Promotion Intervention on Sales at Convenience Stores in the Southeastern US

OBJECTIVE

This study investigated the feasibility of in-store signage promoting sparkling water and the impact of this signage on sparkling water sales in convenience stores.

DESIGN

We conducted a randomized control trial.

SETTING

Convenience stores in North Carolina.

PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-four convenience stores in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-eligible households.

INTERVENTION(S)

The 24 eligible stores were randomized to receive the in-store signage promoting sparkling water or to the control condition of no change. One poster was hung on the beverage cooler doors in front of the sparkling water selections at each of the 12 participating stores. Weekly sales data and fidelity checks were collected.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)

The primary outcome measure was sales of total water, and the subanalysis was sales of sparkling water.

ANALYSIS

T tests were conducted to assess changes in total water and sparkling water sales between intervention and control stores.

RESULTS

In-store signage did not significantly increase sales of sparkling water, or all water, during the intervention.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Signage alone may not be enough to impact healthy beverage purchasing, and signage should be paired with other promotional components to increase healthy beverage purchases in convenience stores.

What Types of Data are Pharmacy Education Scholars Using in their Abstracts for Poster Presentations?

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to describe the data being used to support poster presentations in pharmacy education scholarship.

METHODS

Research and education posters presented at the 2020 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Annual Meeting were unitized to isolate text to be coded, and two coders categorized the quantitative and qualitative data by type and source. Questionnaires, instruments, and exams were categorized as new (ie developed and used for this particular inquiry) vs. existing. Qualitative data types were categorized as interviews, focus groups, self-reflections, analysis of student work products (eg lab reports assessed for student understanding), comments (ie written or verbal comments), and other (eg course reports).

RESULTS

Two hundred and sixteen abstracts were included in the analysis, with 80 (37%) of abstracts relying on data derived from respondent's perceptions. Further, 143 abstracts (66%) used at least one new questionnaire, instrument, or exam. In 57% of the cases where multiple data sources were used, the study involved interprofessional education (eg multiple health professions learners) or pharmacy student-investigator combinations, and 28 abstracts (13%) did not use pharmacy students as a source. Less than 5% of all abstracts analyzed used traditional qualitative methods of interviews and focus groups.

CONCLUSION

This study can open conversations around how to improve the quality of pharmacy education research and the identification of areas within the scholarship of teaching and learning that may benefit from improvement.

EvoDesigner: Evolving Poster Layouts

Frequently, one of the goals of Graphic Design (gd) is discovering disruptive visual solutions that stand out and attract people's attention. However, due to the increasing democratisation of gd, graphic designers tend to adopt design trends, leading to designs that many times lack innovative and catchy features. EvoDesigner is an evolutionary extension for Adobe InDesign that aims to aid gd processes by automatically evolving layout and style variations of given InDesign pages. The generated pages might be previously created and post-edited by designers, promoting co-creation. As an extension of the study EvoDesigner: Towards Aiding Creativity in Graphic Design, this article begins with a general introduction of EvoDesigner. Then, we review previous experiments on evolving pages towards the page balance of existing target posters. Furthermore, we present new experiments exploring the benefits of using grid systems to position and scale page items along with a user survey made to gather feedback about the impact of grid systems in the generated pages and showcase examples of artefacts created from the collaboration between designers and the system. The findings indicate that the presented techniques can be used to interpret current layouts in different manners, and suggest that grid systems may be a useful tool for promoting the automatic production of layouts with better organisation when compared to applying no organisational constraints. However, a conducted user survey indicates that, depending on the goals of the designers, more organised layouts might not always be synonymous with better results.

Posters as a Tool to Improve Hand Hygiene among Health Science Students: Case-Control Study

(1) Background: Numerous educational interventions have been conducted to improve hand hygiene (HH) compliance and effectiveness among nursing students, with mixed results. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of posters as a teaching tool and factors associated with HH quality. (2) Methods: A pre-post experimental intervention study was conducted with a total of 293 nursing students randomly assigned to two groups (experimental and control) who, before and after HH, took cell culture samples from their non-dominant hands. Only the experimental group was exposed to the poster. (3) Results: In the experimental group, significant differences were observed among students older than 22 years (p = 0.017; V = 0.188), with a higher percentage of failures (15.7% vs. 3.6%). Poster displaying was associated with passing, other variables being equal, although without statistical significance (ORa = 2.07; 95% CI = 0.81-5.26). Pre-practice hand contamination was weakly associated with lower HH quality (ORa = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.99-0.99). (4) Conclusions: The use of posters as a teaching method shows indications of efficacy. Prior hand contamination slightly affects the quality of HH. Further evaluation of teaching methods is needed to ensure good technical performance of HH to prevent the spread of infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publication rate of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the AANS/CNS Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the AANS/CNS Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves (Spine Summit).

METHODS

The authors used a search algorithm in PubMed to determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the Spine Summit from 2007 to 2012. The variables assessed were presentation modality, topic, meeting year, publication year, destiny journal and its 5-year impact factor (IF), country, and citation count (retrieved from the Scopus database).

RESULTS

One thousand four hundred thirty-six abstracts were analyzed; 502 were oral presentations and 934 were digital poster presentations. The publication rate was 53.97% (775/1436). The mean time from presentation to publication was 1.35 ± 1.97 years (95% CI 1.21-1.49 years). The mean citation count of published articles was 40.55 ± 55.21 (95% CI 36.66-44.44). Oral presentations had a higher publication rate (71.51%, 359/502) than digital posters (44.54%, 416/934; OR 3.13, 95% CI 2.48-3.95, p < 0.001). Oral presentations had a higher number of citations (55.51 ± 69.00, 95% CI 48.35-62.67) than digital posters (27.64 ± 34.88, 95% CI 24.28-31.00, p < 0.001). The mean IF of published articles was 3.48 ± 2.91 (95% CI 3.27-3.70). JNS: Spine (191/775, 24.64%), Spine (103/775, 13.29%), and Neurosurgery (56/775, 7.23%) had the greatest number of published articles. The US represented the highest number of published articles (616/775, 79.48%).

CONCLUSIONS

The publication rate of the Spine Summit is among the highest compared to other spine meetings. Many of the abstracts initially presented at the meeting are further published in high-IF journals and had a high citation count. Therefore, the Spine Summit maintains its high standards of scientific papers, which reflects the high quality of the research performed in the spine surgery field in North America.

Symposium summary: Epigenetic inheritance-impact for biology and society 26-28 August 2019, Zurich, Switzerland

The concept of epigenetic inheritance proposes a new and unconventional way to think about heredity in health and disease, at the interface between genetics and the environment. Epigenetic inheritance is a form of biological inheritance not encoded in the DNA sequence itself but mediated by epigenetic factors. Because epigenetic factors can be modulated by the environment, they can relay this information to the genome and modify its activity consequentially. If epigenetic changes induced by environmental exposure are present in the germline and persist in germ cells during development until conception, they have the potential to transfer the traces of ancestral exposure to the progeny. This form of heredity relates to the extremely important question of nature versus nurture and how much of our own make-up is genetically or epigenetically determined, a question that remains largely unresolved. Because it questions the dominant dogma of genetics and brings a paradigm shift in sciences, it has to creating strong bridges between disciplines and provide solid causal evidence to be firmly established. The second edition of a conference fully dedicated to epigenetic inheritance was held in August 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland. This symposium titled 'Epigenetic inheritance: impact for biology and society' (http://www.epigenetic-inheritance-zurich.ethz.ch), gathered experts in the field of epigenetic inheritance to discuss the concept and pertinent findings, exchange views and expertise about models and methods, and address challenges raised by this new discipline. The symposium offered a mix of invited lectures and short talks selected from abstracts, poster sessions and a workshop 'Meet the experts: Q&A'. A tour of a local omics facility the Functional Genomics Center Zurich was also offered to interested participants. Additional comments and impressions were shared by attendees on Twitter #eisz19 during and after the symposium. This summary provides an overview of the different sessions and talks and describes the main findings presented.

Even we are important: Sexuality and the degenderisation of people with disabilities in the linguistic landscapes of two South African universities in the Western Cape province

Background

This study focuses on the positioning of gender, sexual orientation and people with disabilities in the linguistic landscapes of two selected South African universities, which are located in the Western Cape province.

Objectives

This study aims to answer the question: How are power relations depicted through linguistic landscaping in the universities?

Methods

Given that there is minimal empirical data in this field, the researcher approached this question by exploring the way in which sexual orientation and people with disabilities are perceived, via the modal resources used in the categorisation of toilet users at the institutions. Specifically, toilet signage was observed as there were only a few other signage or forms of support (such as ramps and lifts – some of which may seem disability-unfriendly in terms of space) and acknowledgement in other places at the institutions for people with disabilities. Data (signs, images, texts, billboards and posters) were collected by means of photography. The interpretive paradigm was used to determine the choice of methodology: critical discourse analysis and multimodality. These were also used to thematically analyse the collected data.

Results

Findings revealed that sexuality, as well as subtle inequality, unfortunately remain unravelled areas in South Africa’s higher institutions of learning. In addition, the degenderisation of people with disabilities appears to be prevalent at the institutions, although this may not necessarily be reflective of practices at all higher education institutions in South Africa.

Conclusion

Nonetheless, the examined results are stimulating indicators of hegemonic and preferred practices in public places. They also depict the obtainable dissimilar scales and imbalances in society, which are not addressed may impede other authentic and ongoing measures of social integration and advancement.

Posters Have Limited Utility in Conveying a Message of Antimicrobial Stewardship to Pet Owners

Pet owners frequently administer antimicrobials to their pets and therefore have an important role to play in promoting antimicrobial stewardship in veterinary medicine. However, best methods of educating pet owners about antimicrobial stewardship have yet to be defined. While visual materials such as brochures and posters are often used in health promotion campaigns, their effectiveness in veterinary medicine is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether pet owners noticed and retained the message of a poster with an antimicrobial stewardship message placed in veterinary clinic exam rooms. A total of 111 pet owners from five veterinary clinics (three general practices, two low-cost clinics) in the greater Philadelphia area participated in the study. Participants completed a survey asking whether they noticed the poster and if they could paraphrase its message. In a follow-up survey, an antibiotic knowledge score was calculated from answers to questions assessing their knowledge of the poster message. Baseline knowledge was assessed by asking participants to define antibiotic resistance. At the end of the study, veterinarians at participating clinics were interviewed about their experiences with the poster. Only 51 (46.4%) participants noticed the poster, and only 11 (9.9%) could partially or completely reproduce its message. No demographic or clinic-level factors were significantly associated with noticing the poster or recalling its message. Antibiotic knowledge scores were highly correlated (ρ = 0.87, p < 0.001) with baseline knowledge and not affected by viewing the poster (p = 0.955). Veterinarians expressed skepticism that the poster was effective in conveying a message of judicious antibiotic use to clients and noted no difference in the frequency with which they discussed antibiotic resistance or felt pressured to prescribe antibiotics by their clients. Posters alone will likely have limited impact in conveying a message of judicious antibiotic use to pet owners. However, they might be useful as part of an active, multi-modal education strategy, especially if complemented by veterinarian actions.

From conference abstract to publication in the conservation science literature

Every 2 years, the conservation community comes together at The Society for Conservation Biology's International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) to share new developments in conservation science and practice. Publication of findings presented at conferences in scientific journals adds to the permanent record and helps increase the potential impact of the work presented. However, quantitative research on publication rates for meetings relevant to conservation is lacking. For the 25th ICCB, (Auckland, New Zealand in 2011), we examined study publication rates and presenter demographics, recorded titles, number of authors, presenter affiliations, gender, country of the study region, publication status, and elapsed time between presentation and publication. Of the 980 contributions (782 talks and 198 posters), 587 (60%) were published as peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters. Mean time to publication was 13.7 months for all presentation abstracts and 21.3 months excluding abstracts with corresponding articles that were published before the meeting. The gender breakdown of presenters was almost even (53% male, 47% female), but representation of the countries where the presenting authors were based was skewed. The political units with the most contributions were by far the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Presenters based in 16 different English-speaking countries made up 74% of the total sample, but this did not influence the likelihood of their abstract leading to a publication. Examination of conference presenters and publication of their presentations is useful to identify biases and potential challenges that need to be addressed to make conference communications permanent and increase their reach beyond conference attendees.

High Publication Rate of Abstracts Presented at Lumbar Spine Research Society Meetings

Background

Although publication rates from multiple orthopedic research conferences have been published in the literature, the publication rates of abstracts presented at the Lumbar Spine Research Society (LSRS) meetings have never been reported. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the publication rates from the LSRS annual meeting years 2008-2012 and then to compare those rates with that of other spine research society meetings.

Methods

Podium presentations from 2008 to 2012 and poster presentations from 2010 to 2012 were reviewed. For each presentation, a PubMed search was performed to determine if a full-text publication existed. χ² tests were used to compare LSRS publication rates to those of other spine meetings. In addition, impact of published articles was evaluated by average citation count and average journal impact factor.

Results

From 2008 to 2012, a total of 332 podium and poster presentations were identified. The overall publication rate was 55.1% (183/332). For podium presentations, this was greatest in 2012 (66.0%) and lowest in 2008 (51.5%). For poster presentations, this was greatest in 2012 (53.6%) and lowest in 2010 (25.0%). The publication rate of presentations is statistically greater than the publication rates of Eurospine (37.8%, P < .001), North American Spine Society (40.0%, P < .001), The International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (45.0%, P = .012), and the Scoliosis Research Society (47.0%, P = .042) but not statistically different than that of Cervical Spine Research Society (65.7%, P = .059). In addition, the average citation count per published article categorized by year ranged from 13 to 31. The average journal impact factor of published articles categorized by year ranged from 2.31 to 2.55.

Conclusions

While LSRS is a relatively young society, these findings point to the high quality of presentations at this scientific meeting. These findings speak to the scientific rigor of presentations at LSRS.

Clinical Relevance

This study helps clinicians and scientists gauge the quality of a research meeting and make informed choices on which gatherings to attend.

Reflecting on the learning opportunities of presenting at a conference

Background Research productivity is a major indicator of higher educational institutions' (HEI) academic performance. The increasing focus on research productivity is resulting in an expectation that academics publish their research initiatives, ideas and developments in their scope of work or area of interest. It can influence academic status and compel nursing academics to undertake higher degrees, including PhDs or other doctoral studies. Aim To articulate a nurse academic's reflection on presenting her doctoral thesis at an international conference and to encourage students to embrace the dissemination of research. Discussion In HEIs, academic work and research compete with each other. For the academic who is also a doctoral student, attending research conferences for knowledge and dissemination can be challenging and emotionally labouring. Conclusion It is important that doctoral students from the nursing professions engage in research dissemination at local and international level. This can improve their confidence, appreciation of research in terms of methodologies, findings, interventions and presenting styles. It can also help to develop confidence in articulating their own research epistemology and ontology while networking. Implications for practice Attendance at conferences contributes to the development of the doctoral student's confidence, knowledge, research capability, ability to identify good research practice and to engage in peer review.

Scientific Posters: A Plea from a Conference Attendee

Conferences provide lots of opportunities to learn and poster sessions are supposed to be one of these venues. However, it seems most posters are not designed considering the reader or the venue; they are designed to reflect a potential manuscript. In this commentary, I provide a rationale why posters should be an illustrated abstract and provide some design tips to make the poster more reader friendly based on available research.

Implementation of an integrated longitudinal curricular activity for graduating pharmacy students

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate whether a novel integrated longitudinal curricular activity to prepare graduating doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students for 2 comprehensive examinations was successful, and to assess whether it engaged other pharmacy students in curricular discussion and learning.

DESIGN

Thirty-eight of 91graduating third-year (P3) students in a PharmD program formed 11 teams to create and present pharmacotherapeutic posters to their peers. The impact of the novel activity on graduating students' performance on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and a comprehensive commercial examination was assessed. All first-year (P1), second-year (P2), and P3 students reviewed and discussed the content of each poster.

ASSESSMENT

Participants in the integrated longitudinal curricular activity performed better than nonparticipants on the commercial examination (p=0.023) and NAPLEX (p=0.033). However, regardless of participation, commercial examination scores predicted a significant amount of variance (ie, 34%) in NAPLEX scores. The P3 participants (83%) believed the curricular activity assisted them in their NAPLEX preparation, while 75% of P1 students, 79% of P2 students, and 80% of P3 students agreed that poster review provided an effective summary of different disease states. Ninety percent of faculty poster evaluators reported that the posters were professional, and all evaluators agreed that participants effectively conveyed their message to the intended audience.

CONCLUSION

The integrated longitudinal curricular activity provided a positive learning environment for all pharmacy students and may have better prepared graduating students' for the NAPLEX.

"Yo! This is no lie, if you smoke, you die": a content analysis of anti-smoking posters created by adolescents

INTRODUCTION

Exposure to anti-smoking messages is strongly associated with lower smoking initiation by adolescents. However, few anti-smoking efforts have involved message generation by adolescents themselves. This article presents a content analysis of anti-smoking posters created by middle school students in two northeastern schools in the United States. Understanding how smoking prevention messages should be framed from the perspective of young teens will provide us with formative information about what kinds of smoking prevention messages teens believe are effective.

METHODS

50 anti-smoking posters created by adolescents (11-14 years) were content analysed, with a focus around three broad areas: effects of smoking portrayed in posters, specific ways of message depiction in posters and use of slogans.

RESULT

Results of content analysis reveal that appearance-related factors (44%) were most commonly used to convey harmful health effects of smoking, followed by messages about death and dying (30%), before-after effects of smoking (22%), other sickness-related effects of smoking (20%) and cancer (12%). Supplemental thematic analysis revealed that in a majority of posters pictures were exaggerated and were dominant part of the posters.

DISCUSSION

These results provide information about anti-smoking messages/themes perceived as efficacious by young adolescents and have implications for developing anti-smoking messages for adolescents.

Tips for better visual elements in posters and podium presentations

CONTEXT

The ability to effectively communicate through posters and podium presentations using appropriate visual content and style is essential for health care educators.

OBJECTIVES

To offer suggestions for more effective visual elements of posters and podium presentations.

METHODS

We present the experiences of our multidisciplinary publishing group, whose combined experiences and collaboration have provided us with an understanding of what works and how to achieve success when working on presentations and posters. Many others would offer similar advice, as these guidelines are consistent with effective presentation. FINDINGS/SUGGESTIONS: Certain visual elements should be attended to in any visual presentation: consistency, alignment, contrast and repetition. Presentations should be consistent in font size and type, line spacing, alignment of graphics and text, and size of graphics. All elements should be aligned with at least one other element. Contrasting light background with dark text (and vice versa) helps an audience read the text more easily. Standardized formatting lets viewers know when they are looking at similar things (tables, headings, etc.). Using a minimal number of colors (four at most) helps the audience more easily read text. For podium presentations, have one slide for each minute allotted for speaking. The speaker is also a visual element; one should not allow the audience's view of either the presentation or presenter to be blocked. Making eye contact with the audience also keeps them visually engaged.

CONCLUSIONS

Health care educators often share information through posters and podium presentations. These tips should help the visual elements of presentations be more effective.

Quality of health education posters in primary health care centers in Al-khobar town, eastern province

BACKGROUND

Health Education (HE) is vital to each of the seven other central ele-ments of Public Health Care (PHC). HE must be carefully planned and implemented. A crucial part of HE is planning, production and placement of effective HE posters.

OBJECTIVE

Assess the quality of health education posters in Al-Khobar PHC centers.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study of a sample of 138 HE posters in three PHC centers in Al-Khobar was conducted. The quality of posters in relation to set criteria was measured using a data sheet and scoring system developed by the investigator.

RESULTS

The health education subjects displayed were among the common health problems in Saudi Arabia in 134 (97.1 %) of the posters.More than one-third (34.8%) had been displayed for more than one year. In 74 (53.6%) of the posters, the source of scientific information was unknown. The assessment showed that 109 (79%) posters were of optimal quality.

CONCLUSION

The study showed that the health education posters in PHC centers in Al-Khobar were relatively satisfactory, though they did not fulfill some of the required criteria. Health education posters should be included in the assessment of health education programs in primary health care centers.