Healthy Balance
Educating Indviduals on How to "Stay in the Saddle": Avoiding Overuse Injuries Associated with Cycling
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael Lebec
Road cycling and mountain biking on trails have become increasingly popular. Though cyclists, especially mountain bikers, are at risk for traumatic injuries, athletes who participate in these sports are also at significant risk for developing overuse syndromes. Overuse problems associated with cycling are thought to occur due to a combination of repeated, vibratory stresses and the sustained but unnatural positions assumed by participants during long hours of riding over pavement or trail-like surfaces. The most commonly reported conditions afflict low back, neck, or knees and are the result of inefficient patterns of motor recruitment as well as environmental factors within the rider’s control. This review describes the mechanisms by which cycling-associated overuse conditions are proposed to develop and describes how education and a proper training regimen may help cyclists recover from overuse syndromes or prevent their onset altogether.
Health Promotion of Health Care Professionals through Interprofessional, Intergenerational Contemplative Practices
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Heather Wallace
The benefits of contemplative practices have been demonstrated across specific health problems and among specific populations. A growing body of research on contemplative practices reflects that practitioners may experience a range of physical, social, and psychological benefits, including significant improvements in stress, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization (Schroeder et al., 2016) as well as greater compassion, self-care and resilience which were found to be buffers of strain, distress, and burnout (Olson, Kemper, & Mahan, 2015). Likewise, studies of inter-generational learning in higher education point to numerous benefits including greater social capital, empathy, and decreases in ageist perspectives and attitudes. This session will discuss the results of a novel and innovative research project that investigated the use of contemplative practices, such as mindfulness meditation, visualization, deep listening, and contemplative movement, among a interprofessional and intergenerational group of patients, health care providers and health care students as a means to improving stress, role satisfaction, mindfulness, and compassion. Results suggest that an inter-generational and inter professional format to contemplative practice improves self perceived stress, empathy, and reduces ageism.
Social Support and Children’s Healthy Practice: Examining the Mediating Effects of Parental Health Literacy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chengwei Xu, Paulin Straughan
Many existing studies have found that social support and health literacy have positive associations with an individual's health status. However, it is still unclear how social support and health literacy influence an individual’s health practices. The present study hypothesizes that health literacy has a mediating effect on the relationship between social support and health practices. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a questionnaire survey in Singapore and collected a nationally representative sample of 1,491 household responses. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) via Stata was used to examine the indirect effects of social support on health practices. Results support our hypothesis. Specifically, only when social support facilitates the acquisition of health knowledge, it promotes the adoption of good health practices. The implications of promoting a healthy lifestyle through social support and health literacy are discussed.
The Strategy to Successfully Innovate in Public Health Programs
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Devasheesh Mathur
The paper maps the journey of six policy innovations in India-from invention to implementation to record if there could be a coherent strategy to break the mold and innovate successfully in public health policies. These innovations are largely for the marginalized sections of the society. By studying three successful programs and three failed ones, the authors create a strategy of successful policy innovations called 4 I framework. One half of the framework is being called ‘Ecosystem Thinking’ as it requires the policy designer to collaborate with all stakeholders and use the Design Thinking process; while the other half is referred to as ‘Change Management’ as it demands that the public department goes through a series of changes internally before implementing the innovation.
