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What's
New at the Centers
Highlights of Current Research
The faculty
at the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine are actively engaged
in understanding how best to use computer technology to engage and assist
individuals in making positive health behavior changes. There are currently
6 funded projects within the Centers in the area of health informatics.
Current research
studies focus on diverse behaviors including weight loss, physical activity,
smoking cessation, nutrition and diabetes management. Intervention channels
include computer-tailored print messages, computer-tailored phone counseling,
interactive voice response messaging, personalized e-mail messages and internet
web pages to maximize reach and our understanding of the use of various types
of informatics interventions. Populations include worksites, low-income adults,
community-based primary care patients and physicians, community adults, cardiac
rehabilitation patients and users of the World Wide Web. This focus on applying
informatics technologies to health behavior interventions will allow the Centers
to better understand the mechanisms behind health informatics interventions
and to efficiently disseminate to the world the findings and breakthroughs
achieved at the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine.
Emerging
communication tools, such as the Internet, telecommuni-
cations, digital and
satellite communications, can help us spread the
prevention message and promote
health in ways that previous
generations could only dream of.
- David
Satcher, MD, Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health
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