Online social networks and smoking cessation: a scientific research agenda

By Nathan K Cobb1,2,3,4, MD; Amanda L Graham1,3, PhD;
M Justin Byron4, MHS; David B Abrams1,3,4, PhD; Workshop Participants5

1Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies, American
  Legacy Foundation, Washington, DC, United States
2Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care, Department of Medicine, Georgetown
  University Medical Center, Washington, DC, United States
3Department of Oncology, Georgetown University Medical Center / Lombardi
  Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC, United States
4Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
  School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States
5see acknowledgements

Corresponding Author:
Nathan K Cobb, MD
Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies
American Legacy Foundation
1724 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC, 20036
United States
Phone: 1 202 454 5745
Fax: 1 202 454 5785
Email: ncobb [at] legacyforhealth.org


ABSTRACT

Background: Smoking remains one of the most pressing public health problem
s in the United States and internationally. The concurrent evolution of the Internet,
social network science, and online communities offers a potential target for high-
yield interventions capable of shifting population-level smoking rates and
substantially improving public health.
Objective: Our objective was to convene leading practitioners in relevant disciplines
to develop the core of a strategic research agenda on online social networks and
their use for smoking cessation, with implications for other health behaviors.
Methods: We conducted a 100-person, 2-day, multidisciplinary workshop in
Washington, DC, USA. Participants worked in small groups to formulate research
questions that could move the field forward. Discussions and resulting questions
were synthesized by the workshop planning committee.
Results: We considered 34 questions in four categories (advancing theory,
understanding fundamental mechanisms, intervention approaches, and
evaluation) to be the most pressing.
Conclusions: Online social networks might facilitate smoking cessation in
several ways. Identifying new theories, translating these into functional
interventions, and evaluating the results will require a concerted transdisciplinary
effort. This report presents a series of research questions to assist researchers,
developers, and funders in the process of efficiently moving this field forward.

(J Med Internet Res 2011;13(4):e119)

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Launch of the new Health Systems Evidence website

McMaster Health Forum
December, 2011

Website:  <http://bit.ly/tdZgSi>




Health Systems Evidence is a valuable resource for policymakers,
stakeholders and researchers seeking to address today’s most
pressing health challenges. It provides answers on questions
about how to strengthen or reform health systems, or how to get
cost-effective programs, services and drugs to those who need them.

The redeveloped website offers numerous enhancements, including
new open search and advanced search functionalities, and is available
in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese,
Russian and Spanish.

Health Systems Evidence, a continuously updated repository of
syntheses of research evidence about health system governance,
financial and delivery arrangements, has expanded dramatically since
its launch less than two years ago. It also includes syntheses of
research about implementation strategies that can support change in
health systems, and is now adding economic evaluations in these
same domains, descriptions of health system reforms, and descriptions
of health systems.

The database currently contains nearly 2,000 records that are coded
with additional details such as the quality of the synthesis, how
recently the search for the studies was conducted, and the countries
in which the studies included in the synthesis were conducted.
Key findings of the documents are available through links to
user-friendly summaries written by any of nine groups in the world.

Other enhancements added with the relaunch of Health Systems
Evidence include a comprehensive synonyms dictionary that cuts
through the different jargon in use within and across countries, a filter
that allows users to identify evidence that targets low- and middle-
income countries, and a customizable evidence service that will provide
monthly email alerts identifying new documents available in the
database specific to someone’s individual interests.



Video tutorial about Health Systems Evidence - <http://bit.ly/tf88y9>
on how to make the best use of the site is provided, which will assist
users to rapidly identify the best available  research on a particular
health system topic.

A Study of Innovative Features in Scholarly Open Access Journals

By Bo-Christer Björk, PhD

Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Corresponding Author:
Bo-Christer Björk, PhD

Hanken School of Economics
P.O. Box 479
Helsinki, 00101
Finland
Phone: 358 50 3553425
Fax: 358 9 43133275
Email: Bo-Christer.Bjork [at] hanken.fi


ABSTRACT

Background: The emergence of the Internet has triggered tremendous
changes in the publication of scientific peer-reviewed journals. Today,
journals are usually available in parallel electronic versions, but the way
the peer-review process works, the look of articles and journals, and the
rigid and slow publication schedules have remained largely unchanged,
at least for the vast majority of subscription-based journals. Those
publishing firms and scholarly publishers who have chosen the more
radical option of open access (OA), in which the content of journals is
freely accessible to anybody with Internet connectivity, have had a much
bigger degree of freedom to experiment with innovations.
Objective: The objective was to study how open access journals have
experimented with innovations concerning ways of organizing the peer
review, the format of journals and articles, new interactive and media
formats, and novel publishing revenue models.
Methods: The features of 24 open access journals were studied. The
journals were chosen in a nonrandom manner from the approximately
7000 existing OA journals based on available information about
interesting journals and include both representative cases and highly
innovative outlier cases.
Results: Most early OA journals in the 1990s were founded by individual
scholars and used a business model based on voluntary work close in
spirit to open-source development of software. In the next wave, many
long-established journals, in particular society journals and journals
from regions such as Latin America, made their articles OA when they 
started publishing parallel electronic versions. From about 2002 on,
newly founded professional OA publishing firms using article-
processing charges to fund their operations have emerged. Over the
years, there have been several experiments with new forms of peer
review, media enhancements, and the inclusion of structured data
sets with articles. In recent years, the growth of OA publishing has
also been facilitated by the availability of open-source software for
journal publishing.
Conclusions: The case studies illustrate how a new technology and
a business model enabled by new technology can be harnessed to
find new innovative ways for the organization and content of scholarly
publishing. Several recent launches of OA journals by major
subscription publishers demonstrate that OA is rapidly gaining
acceptance as a sustainable alternative to subscription-based
scholarly publishing.

(J Med Internet Res 2011;13(4):e115)

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Declaración política de Río sobre determinantes sociales de la salud

La Declaración Política de Río sobre Determinantes Sociales
de Salud se adoptó durante la Conferencia Mundial sobre
Determinantes Sociales de la Salud el 21 de octubre 2011.


La declaración expresa el compromiso político global para la
implementación de los determinantes sociales de la salud para
reducir las inequidades en salud y lograr otras prioridades
mundiales. Esto ayudará a crear un impulso dentro de los
países para el desarrollo de planes de acción y estrategias nacionales.

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La Mona Lisa: un compendio de Medicina Interna

Por A. Martínez García

Dirección para correspondencia
A. Martínez García
C/ Aniceto Marinas, 2-5º A
28008 Madrid

Publicado en:

AN. MED. INTERNA (Madrid) 2006; 23(3):139-41.

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