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Showing posts from December, 2013

Text Messaging Data Collection for Monitoring an Infant Feeding Intervention Program in Rural China

A recently published study in the J ournal of Medical Internet Research   explored the feasibility of using text messaging as a data collection tool to monitor an infant feeding intervention program in rural China. The text messaging method had reasonable data agreement and low cost, but a low response rate. An effective data collection method is crucial for high quality monitoring of health interventions. The traditional face-to-face data collection method is labour intensive, expensive, and time consuming. With the rapid increase of mobile phone subscribers, text messaging has the potential to be used for evaluation of population health interventions in rural China.  Further research is needed to evaluate effectiveness of measures that can increase the response rate, especially in collecting longitudinal data by text messaging.

Dr Aisha Newth Appointed as New Faculty Development Lead

Dr Aisha Newth has taken on the role of Faculty Development Lead in our Undergraduate General Practice Teaching Unit.  Some of you may already know Dr Newth as she has been working in the Department of Primary Care & Public Health at Imperial College for 9 years. She was co-lead on the Year 5 GPPHC course for the last 4 years. In her new role as Faculty Development Lead, Dr Newth will develop community teaching and to support our GP teachers in NW London. Dr Newth is also a GP Principal at Crown Street Surgery in Acton, West London. Dr Newth comments that " I have always found teaching students to be rewarding, enjoyable and integral to my role as a GP. I learn something new from each student who comes my way and hopefully impart some knowledge onto them. Taking students in my practice reminds me how valuable teaching is for both the teacher and the student as it encourages mutual growth and reflection and continues the learning process, it also brings new energy and enthus

How many children start smoking every year?

Research published today has attempted to quantify how many children start smoking ever year in the UK. Using data from the Smoking Drinking and Drug Use Survey the study compared smoking rates for 11 to 15 year olds between the latest two years of the survey. This gave an estimate of 207,000 children starting smoking every year across the whole of the U.K. Incorporating data on adult smoking prevalence, the study was also able to break this estimate down by Local Authority, so that public health attention can be appropriately focused at the local level. Although there is some uncertainty around these estimates, they represent our current best guess of the uptake of a leading cause of death, which has even more serious health impacts if started in childhood. Although smoking prevalence has declined in the last 30 years, this trend may be stalling and these estimates should add weight to calls for stronger action on smoking , and contribute to the current review on standardise