Background: Canadian funding agencies are no longer content to support research that solely advances scientific knowledge, and key directives are now in place to promote research transfer to policy-and decision-makers. Therefore, it is necessary to improve our understanding of how researchers are trained and supported to facilitate knowledge translation activities. In this study, we investigated differences in health researcher characteristics and knowledge translation activities.
A pproximately two million Canadian boys and girls are overweight or obese (1,2), which places them at increased risk for several chronic diseases. Overweight and obese children referred for weight management often exhibit suboptimal lifestyle behaviours (3) -a finding that highlights the potential for interventions to promote healthier habits. These observations, along with recent clinical practice guidelines (4) and best practice recommendations (5), underscore the importance of healthy lifestyle behaviours as the cornerstone of paediatric weight management. Even in situations for which more intensive therapy may be indicated, nutrition, physical activity and behavioural counselling remain foundational strategies (6,7).Evidence supporting the successful treatment of paediatric obesity is primarily derived from group-based interventions, which tend to be more efficacious (8) and cost effective (9), and reduce attrition (10) versus one-on-one care. Alternately, one-on-one care is more feasible, appropriate (in some situations) and common in many Canadian paediatric weight management clinics (11). A key limitation of the aforementioned research is that most studies included community-based volunteers -a situation that differs for many paediatricians who refer obese boys and girls to multidisciplinary weight management clinics. Recently, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) emphasized the value of integrating research into practice-based settings as a way to enhance health services for Canadians (12). We believe that offering one-on-one interventions in clinics that provide paediatric weight management care and conduct applied research in real-world environments can inform health service delivery ) that does not include these techniques; and to determine whether the HIP and YLP interventions are superior to a wait list control (WLC) group. METHODS: Obese adolescents were randomly assigned to a YLP (n=15), HIP (n=17) or WLC (n=14) group. The YLP and HIP were 16-session, one-on-one interventions. The primary outcome was the percentage change of body mass index z-score. RESULTS: Completers-only analyses revealed 3.9% (YLP) and 6.5% (HIP) decreases in the percentage change of body mass index z-score compared with a 0.8% (WLC) increase (P<0.001). Levels of attrition did not differ among groups, but were relatively high (approximately 20% to 40%). CONCLUSION: Lifestyle interventions delivered in a real-world, clinical setting led to short-term improvements in the obesity status of adolescents.
The objective of this systematic review was to compare the results of studies of Internet-based eating disorder prevention programs. Eight electronic bibliographic databases, three key journals, and study reference lists were searched. This method yielded five published studies: four experimental and one quasi-experimental. A meta-analysis of the study results indicated no statistical significance for pooled study outcome data. No robust evidence exists on the impact of Internet-based prevention strategies on eating disordered symptomatology and on putative factors that contribute to eating disorder development. Further intervention development and consideration to study design are needed to move this field forward.
In the landmark 1990 publication Scholarship Reconsidered, Boyer challenged the 'teaching verses research debates' by advocating for the scholarship of discovery, teaching, integration, and application. The scholarship of discovery considers publications and research as the yardstick in the merit, promotion and tenure system the world over. But this narrow view of scholarship does not fully support the obligations of universities to serve global societies and to improve health and health equity. Mechanisms to report the scholarship of teaching have been developed and adopted by some universities. In this article, we contribute to the less developed areas of scholarship, i.e. integration and application. We firstly situate the scholarship of discovery, teaching, integration and application within the interprofessional and knowledge exchange debates. Second, we propose a means for health science scholars to report the process and outcomes of the scholarship of integration and application with other disciplines, decision-makers and communities. We conclude with recommendations for structural and process change in faculty merit, tenure, and promotion systems so that health science scholars with varied academic portfolios are valued and many forms of academic scholarship are sustained. It is vital academic institutions remain relevant in an era when the production of knowledge is increasingly recognized as a social collaborative activity.
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