Perceived continuing education needs and job relevance of health education competencies among health education and promotion practitioners in college health settings

Objective and Participants: The author conducted this study to determine college health education and promotion practitioners' perceived continuing education needs and perceived job relevance in relation to national health education responsibilities and competencies. Methods: In Spring 2006, the author invited college health education and promotion professionals to participate in an online survey, using 3 listservs. Of 276 individuals visiting the Web site, 141 participants completed the survey (51%). Participants rated their perceived training needs and job relevance for the 35 National Commission for Health Education Credentialing (NCHEC) competencies as well as preferred training formats. Results: Participants identified the following competencies as those in which they needed additional training: designing data-collection instruments, securing fiscal resources, interpreting evaluation and research results, carrying out evaluation and research plans, and developing plans for evaluation and research. They identified the following competencies as being the most relevant to their jobs: demonstrating a variety of skills in delivering strategies, interventions, and programs; using a variety of methods to implement strategies, interventions, and programs; initiating a plan of action; and using health-related information resources. The most preferred methods of obtaining additional continuing education were attending the American College Health Association annual meeting (67%) and completing home self-study print materials (67%). Conclusions: Collegiate professional organizations should offer a variety of continuing education opportunities centering on NCHEC competencies, specifically those perceived as needed by study participants.     

Nonparametric Bayes Stochastically Ordered Latent Class Models

Latent class models (LCMs) are used increasingly for addressing a broad variety of problems, including sparse modeling of multivariate and longitudinal data, model-based clustering, and flexible inferences on predictor effects. Typical frequentist LCMs require estimation of a single finite number of classes, which does not increase with the sample size, and have a well-known sensitivity to parametric assumptions on the distributions within a class. Bayesian nonparametric methods have been developed to allow an infinite number of classes in the general population, with the number represented in a sample increasing with sample size. In this article, we propose a new nonparametric Bayes model that allows predictors to flexibly impact the allocation to latent classes, while limiting sensitivity to parametric assumptions by allowing class-specific distributions to be unknown subject to a stochastic ordering constraint. An efficient MCMC algorithm is developed for posterior computation. The methods are validated using simulation studies and applied to the problem of ranking medical procedures in terms of the distribution of patient morbidity.     

Physical and moral regeneration after the Terror: medical culture,sensibility and family politics in France, 1794–1804

Physical and moral regeneration was one of the great aspirations of the French Revolution. Revolutionaries fashioned new cultural practices to emphasize collective rebirth and the individual citizen’s own break with a degenerate past. Often associated with radical politics, this article emphasizes regeneration’s conservative manifestations after the Reign of Terror and the Thermidorean reaction of 1794. Against the backdrop of revolutionary transformations in medical theory and practice, doctors and surgeons sought to bring new biomedical knowledge upon previous regenerative projects, arguing that unrestrained biological passions had enervated the polity and caused social disaggregation. By studying domestic hygiene and the ‘limited sensibility’ of living matter, practitioners hoped they could reverse the Jacobin excess and popular upheaval through physical and moral education. These doctors claimed that recent clinical discoveries showed that human nature was less malleable than earlier revolutionaries had believed. Therefore, greater elements of emotional and corporal self-control, taught by practitioners and internalized within the family, could heal civil society and encourage social improvement. This bio-medical programme of regeneration radiated out across three levels, moving from elite clinical theorists to a kind of ‘literary underground’ of medical practice: a hygienic regimen aimed at controlling limited amounts of vital energy in the human body; a ‘physical and moral’ rehabilitation of women to anchor them in the domestic sphere; and reproductive strategies to breed new generations of rejuvenated citizens. In their efforts to incorporate republican hygienic sensibilities within traditional law and custom, doctors helped efface revolutionary memory and contributed to the paternalistic family law of the Civil Code in 1804.     

Rangefinder Box Plots: A Note

This note introduces the rangefinder box plot, an extension of the familiar box plot.     

Physical Activity and Physical Self‐Concept in Adolescence: A Comparison of Girls at the Extremes of the Biological Maturation Continuum

This study examined differences in physical activity and physical self‐concept between the least and most biologically mature female adolescents within chronological age and academic year groups. A total of 252 British female adolescents (M age = 12.9 years; SD = .7) in Years 7–9 completed self‐report measures to assess physical activity and physical self‐concept. Percentage of predicted adult (mature) stature served as the index of biological maturation. Univariate analyses of covariance, controlling for decimal age, revealed that the least mature girls generally held higher perceptions of physical self‐concept but were no more, or less, active than the most mature girls. A subsequent meta‐analysis suggested, however, that across age and year groups the least mature girls were more active than the most mature girls.     

Skewness-Kurtosis Bounds for EGB1, EGB2, and Special Cases

An examination of the theoretical moments of a probability density function provides useful information about the flexibility of alternative distributions. Johnson and Kotz (1970), among others, consider skewness-kurtosis plots to illustratve the ability of various probability density functions to model diverse distributional characteristics. This article investigates the skewness-kurtosis plots of the exponential generalized beta of the first and second kind and some important special cases which have been used in various applications in economics, statistics, and finance.