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Abstract: Aims: In 2021, the nationwide media campaign "Your Chance" of the Commissioner for Drug and Addiction Policy and the Federal Ministry of Health was carried out to motivate smokers to quit smoking. The aim of our study was to assess the campaign's perception and its effects on motivation to stop smoking and quit attempts. Methods: In the context of the German Study on Tobacco Use (DEBRA), 1550 smokers were interviewed in the period before the campaign (18.02. to 30.05.2021) and 2330 during the campaign (31.05. to 14.11.2021). Specific questions related to the perception of the campaign and resulting impulses to change smoking behaviour. Potential effects were measured with the Motivation To Stop Scale and with the rate of smokers with at least one quit attempt. Results: A total of 14.5 % (95%CI=13.1-16.0) of smokers perceived the campaign. Regarding age groups, 14-24-year-olds showed the highest rate of perception (19.1 %, 95%CI=14.9-24.0). Low vs. high educational attainment was associated with a lower odds of perception (OR=0.65, 95%CI=0.46-0.93). Among smokers perceiving the campaign, 6.4 % (95%CI=3.0-11.9) gathered more information about the campaign and 13.6 % (95%CI=9.1-19.0) were prompted to think about quitting. Compared with the period before the campaign there was no difference in motivation to stop (OR=0.96, 95%CI=0.85-1.08) or quit attempts (OR=0.96, 95%CI=0.69-1.35) during the campaign. Discussion: The media campaign „Your Chance" probably had no relevant effects on motivation to stop and attempts to quit tobacco in smokers in Germany. More effective tobacco control measures are urgently needed in order to achieve the long-term goal of a smoke-free society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-mental health and home treatment are treatment approaches that have proven to be e􀀀ective, but are only slowly implemented in the German health care system. This paper explores the attitudes toward these innovative treatment approaches. Data was collected in two large, non-clinical samples representative of the German population in spring 2020 (N = 2,503) and winter 2020/2021 (N = 2,519). Statistical associations between variables were examined using two-tailed tests. Binary and multinomial logistic regressions were performed to predict attitudes toward online-based treatment concepts and home treatment approaches. Only few (<20%) people preferred online-based treatment approaches, while a larger proportion (50%) could imagine being treated at home. Overall, younger subjects were more open to online-therapy approaches, while people with lower education preferred more often a traditional therapy setting. Acceptance of online-therapy did not raise significantly during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. When di􀀀erent online-based treatment options were available, the probability of accepting home treatment significantly increased with increasing levels of therapeutic support. Further promotion of acceptance for online-therapy and home treatment seems to be necessary. In the future, more information on innovative treatment approaches should be actively provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent revelations of the extent of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and the United States have once more triggered the debate about sexual abuse. Those inquiries identify cases that are known to authorities or have been recorded in these institutions. However, to assess the full magnitude of the problem, data beyond recorded or known cases are needed, as it can be assumed that a vast number of cases are not reported and are hence not included in such file reviews. Therefore, representative surveys are needed. The aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of sexual abuse by priests and in different contexts in the German population based on a representative sample. A total of 2,510 participants (54.3% female, M = 48 years) were retrospectively asked about different experiences, offenders, contexts, and so on, of child sexual abuse using questions that were used to assess child sexual abuse in prior surveys and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). In sum, 0.21% (n = 7) of the participants reported child sexual abuse by a priest or pastor. 0.16% reported child sexual abuse in an institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Results also indicated that victims of sexual abuse by priests and pastors reported rather severe types of sexual abuse based on the CTQ in comparison with other contexts, such as schools. Extrapolating the data for the population, it can be assumed that the estimated number of victims is much higher than those identified by research based on recorded cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having a great impact on all areas of the everyday life, including travel behaviour. Various measures that focus on restricting social contacts have been implemented in order to reduce the spread of the virus. Understanding how daily activities and travel behaviour change during such global crisis and the reasons behind is crucial for developing suitable strategies for similar future events and analysing potential mid- and long-term impacts. Methods: In order to provide empirical insights into changes in travel behaviour during the first Coronavirus-related lockdown in 2020 for Germany, an online survey with a relative representative sample for the German population was conducted a week after the start of the nationwide contact ban. The data was analysed performing descriptive and inferential statistical analyses. Results and Discussion: The results suggest in general an increase in car use and decrease in public transport use as well as more negative perception of public transport as a transport alternative during the pandemic. Regarding activity-related travel patterns, the findings show firstly, that the majority of people go less frequent shopping; simultaneously, an increase in online shopping can be seen and characteristics of this group were analysed. Secondly, half of the adult population still left their home for leisure or to run errands; young adults were more active than all other age groups. Thirdly, the majority of the working population still went to work; one out of four people worked in home-office. Lastly, potential implications for travel behaviour and activity patterns as well as policy measures are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The fourth age is considered a life stage with a high likelihood of age-related losses. However, very old age extends over decades, and little is known about how transitions that may happen during this age period (e.g., developing support needs or adopting caregiving roles) or lack thereof might change perceptions of age-related gains or losses. Many subjective age scales assume implicitly that they work across advanced old age, but data to support this assumption are scarce. This study reports findings on (1) diverging, age-specific understandings of age-related change and (2) whether very old adults' functional health, received social support, and caregiving roles, rather than chronological age, account for such differences., Methods: Data came from the nationally representative survey "Old Age in Germany D80+" conducted in 2020/2021, comprising 10,578 individuals aged 80-106 years., Results: At equivalent levels of perceived gains and losses, adults in the early fourth age reported more "freedom in daily life," less "dependency on others," and fewer "needs to reduce activities," whereas adults in the late fourth age reported more "appreciation of others." Chronological age, as such, was not the primary source of this response shift. Rather, functional health, social support, and caregiving responsibilities accounted for the differences in how older adults interpreted and reported specific age-related gains and losses., Discussion: Findings underscore that across the multiple decades of the fourth age, interpretations of aging experiences vary and depend on a person's own late-life health and functioning and on that of significant others., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: Digital health literacy, also known as eHealth literacy, describes the ability to seek, find, understand, and apply health information from the internet to address health problems. The World Health Organization calls for actions to improve digital health literacy. To develop target group-specific digital health literacy interventions, it is necessary to know the digital health literacy of the general population and relevant subgroups., Objective: This study aims to representatively assess the digital health literacy of the population in Germany and relevant subgroups. The results are meant to facilitate the development of target group-specific digital health literacy interventions. Additionally, this study further explores the associations between digital health literacy and physical health, mental health, life satisfaction, and diverse health behaviors., Methods: Study participants were drawn from a representative panel of the German-speaking population with internet access. To further increase the representativeness of the sample, survey weights were calculated using an iterative proportional fitting procedure. Participants answered a series of questionnaires regarding their digital health literacy, physical health, mental health, life satisfaction, and diverse health behaviors. Two-sided independent sample t tests were conducted to determine the significant differences between societal subgroups. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to explore the correlates of digital health literacy., Results: Digital health literacy is unevenly distributed within German society. The results of this study suggest that people with a low level of formal education and people with a low social status would benefit from digital health literacy interventions that address their competencies in the domains of information seeking and information appraisal. Furthermore, the results suggest that older people would likely benefit from digital health literacy interventions that address their competencies in the domains of information seeking and also information appraisal. Regarding sex, this study suggests that men might benefit from digital health literacy interventions that specifically address their competencies in the domain of information seeking. Furthermore, digital health literacy is weakly positively correlated with physical health, mental health, life satisfaction, exercise routines, fruit consumption, and vegetable consumption., Conclusions: Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that digital health literacy is associated with diverse health outcomes and behaviors. Furthermore, the results provide a starting point for the development of target group-specific digital health literacy interventions., (©Lars König, Adelheid Kuhlmey, Ralf Suhr. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 21.02.2024.)

Background: Despite the benefits of a COVID-19 vaccination, too few people in Germany were still considered vaccinated in the summer of 2022. This was explained, among other factors, by socio-demographic differences. The article also analyses this correlation by including the sources of information used on corona vaccination based on the data from the third survey of the "Accompanying research on the communication of corona vaccination in Germany" (CoSiD study, Nov./Dec. 2021; n = 4366 16-year-olds and older)., Methods: Bi- and multivariate correlations were analysed between the uptake of vaccination or the intention to vaccinate of the unvaccinated and socio-demographic characteristics as well as sources of information on COVID-19 vaccination., Results: Of the respondents, 87.7% have been vaccinated at least once. The vaccination rate tends to increase with age, education level and household income and is higher among people in the old federal states and without a migration background. The sources of information on COVID-19 vaccination were mostly discussions among family, friends and colleagues (81.8%) and German TV and radio stations (77.1%). In the multivariate model, higher proportions of people without vaccination intentions were found among respondents who obtained information from TV and radio stations from abroad as well as from social media., Discussion: Information offerings for specific target groups must take social inequalities even more into account. One challenge here is that the use of different information sources is related to different vaccination intentions. In particular, people with vaccination intentions and the undecided can be reached with easily understandable, trustworthy information offerings., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Introduction: It is now well established empirically that families and children who could not attend educational and childcare institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced disadvantages. This is particularly true for families in poverty. However, little is known about the situation of families with young children. The aim of the paper is to investigate (1) to what extent families with infants and toddlers also experienced their situation during the pandemic as stressful, (2) whether there were differences depending on social class, (3) how the pandemic affected the healthy development of infants and toddlers, and (4) to what extent class-related differences can also be identified in this., Methods: The German National Centre for Early Prevention conducted a nationally representative survey of families with children of age 0 to 3 years in April to December 2022, "Kinder in Deutschland 0‑3 2022" (N = 7821). The KiD 0‑3 study combines a parent survey on family psychosocial burden and resources with pediatric documentation of child development., Results: Parents with very young children experienced their situation in the COVID-19 pandemic as stressful. A clear difference depending on social class emerged. Both from the parents' perspective and in pediatric judgment, the pandemic had a negative impact on social and affective development even in young children. These effects were more pronounced in children from families experiencing poverty than in children from families not receiving basic government benefits., Discussion: In order to mitigate the psychosocial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for families and to improve children's chances of growing up in a healthy way that promotes their development, it is necessary to support families in need without stigmatization., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Aim: A broad range of self-tests (testing for e.g. HIV, cancer, hepatitis B/C) is available on the Internet and can be conducted by lay consumers without the help of a health professional. However, little is known about the determinants of self-testing. The aims of this study were to investigate whether the use of self-tests can be predicted by (1) factors specified in social-cognitive health behaviour theories; (2) technological affinity; or (3) anticipated affect. Subjects and methods: An online survey was conducted to investigate social-cognitive health concepts, technological affinity, and anticipated affect as predictors of self-testing. Participants were invited in batches, representative of the age and gender distribution in Germany, until similar numbers of completed cases of non-self-testers ( n = 512) and self-testers ( n = 505) were reached. Univariate and multiple hierarchical logistic regression analyses were carried out. Results: Self-testing was significantly associated with self-test-related self-efficacy, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and to some degree with outcome expectancy. Technological competence acted as a suppressor variable, tending to enhance the predictive value of self-test-related self-efficacy. Participants who anticipated a positive self-test-related affect were more likely to be self-testers than non-self-testers. Conclusions: Self-testing was predicted by the common health psychological constructs. However, including technological affinity and anticipated affect into the model significantly improved the predictive value of the use of self-tests. Given the current shortage of physicians, especially in rural areas, the need for, and actual use of self-tests could increase in Germany in the future. Thus, follow-up studies investigating the emotional consequences of self-testing are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although COVID-19 vaccination reduces severe disease progression as well as hospitalisations and deaths, every fourth to fifth person in Germany is not vaccinated against COVID-19. Effective information and communication measures are needed to reach these people. For this, it is important to know the information behaviour as well as the health competences in the area of COVID-19 vaccination, especially of previously unvaccinated people., Methods: The third representative population survey (November/December 2021; n = 4366) of the CoSiD study (Corona vaccination in Germany) was conducted as a combined telephone and online survey. Bivariate correlations between reported information behaviour, subjective health literacy and vaccination status and intention are investigated. In addition, multivariate correlations of socio-demographic characteristics and subjective health literacy are analysed., Results: Undecided people and people that are more likely to vaccinate were overall less likely to report a good subjective level of information (46.1%; 41.1%) and competences in evaluating information about COVID-19 vaccination (36.5%; 38.8%) as well as decision making (39.0%; 35.9%). Unvaccinated people without vaccination intentions are more likely to report observing information rated as untrustworthy or wrong (60.3%). People with a lower level of education, younger people and people with a migration background report lower levels of heath literacy., Discussion: Communication measures to promote health literacy should specifically address people with uncertain vaccination intentions as well as younger people, people with lower levels of education and people with a migration background., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

This article contributes to the understanding of young people's media cultures by addressing the question whether and to what extent young people with different cultural backgrounds differ in their exposure to and usage of traditional mass media and new digital media as well as in their engagement in various online activities. It presents empirical data of a German survey about the social environment, media use and Internet behaviour among 605 German resettlers and people with a Turkish migration background aged between 12 and 29 years living in North Rhine-Westphalia and compares the results of the 12- to 19-year old youth with data of the same age group within the German general population. To further assess how cultural and social factors might explain the variation within the youth and young adults with migration background, similarities and differences in their media use patterns are traced with respect to their cultural contexts as well as the factors education, age and gender. The findings are discussed in the context of societal integration of young people with migration background, the homogeneity of mediatised youth cultures and the thesis of the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Public concerns about environmental and health impacts of microplastics are high. • Perception varies with socio-demographic factors, but differences are small. • Risk perception is mainly driven by environmental awareness and media narratives. • Public risk perception of microplastics is incongruent with current scientific evidence. Plastic pollution through small particles, so-called microplastics, is acknowledged as an environmental problem of global dimension by both politicians, and the public. An increasing number of environmental studies investigate the exposure and effects of microplastics. Although there are many open questions, current scientific evidence does not confirm a high risk for the environment. At the same time, the issue receives great public attention, which in turn motivates various political and policy actions. So far, little research has examined the underlying social dimensions, i.e., the factors explaining individual risk perception of microplastics. This paper studies the perception of risks associated with microplastics concerning the environment and human health using data from a representative online survey conducted in Germany (n = 1027). We particularly examine the role of socio-demographics, individual awareness, knowledge factors, and the media's influence on risk perception. Our results show that a majority of the respondents rates the risks through microplastics very high for both the environment and human health. Regression analyses demonstrate that environmental awareness and knowledge of media narratives are the strongest predictors for this risk perception. Our study illustrates the incongruence between scientific knowledge, media framing, and the public opinion concerning the risk posed by microplastics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since 1980, the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) has regularly conducted the "Youth Sexuality" representative surveys. This continuous monitoring generates insights on the sexual and reproductive health of young people in Germany. The survey provides an important basis for the development of sexuality education and family planning measures., Aim: The current sexual and contraceptive behavior of adolescents and young adults will be summarized using initial descriptive results from the ninth iteration of the survey., Methods: A total of N = 6032 adolescents and young adults participated in the survey. Data collection was conducted by computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) in 2019., Results: A key finding of this iteration is that with regards to the age of the first sexual intercourse, the proportion of adolescents younger than 17 years has been declining for several years. For contraception, adolescents most frequently used condoms, and use of the pill has decreased., Discussion: The data from the current iteration indicate safe and responsible contraceptive behavior among young people in Germany. Nevertheless, it is important to maintain the commitment in the field of sexual health promotion and expand prevention measures for specific target groups. This is the only way to ensure the sexual and reproductive health of the next generation., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Background: Tattooing has become very popular in recent years. In this context, socio-demographic information and health orientation is important., Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the development of the prevalence of tattoos over the last thirteen years and the social and economic background of people with tattoos. Three national representative surveys were compared for this purpose; men and women residing in Germany were included. Additionally, the purpose of the study was to assess socio-demographic information and the health orientation of respondents with tattoos., Materials and Methods: Three national, representative surveys were conducted on German participants (2016: n = 2510, 2009: n = 2512, 2003: n = 2043). The number of tattoos and socio-demographic information were investigated. The Health Regulatory Focus Scale (HRFS) assessing the individual's health orientation was used in 2016., Results: Currently, one out of five Germans (≥14 years) has at least one tattoo. In Germany, tattoos are most prevalent among younger adults of both sexes aged 25 to 34 years. People with all levels of education have tattoos, although there were weak correlations with a lower education level and unemployment. Only men with several tattoos showed a significantly lower health orientation than non-tattooed ones., Conclusion: The fact that nearly one fifth of the German population has tattoos suggests that this permanent body art is becoming more and more accepted in German society. As a result, a need for better health risk information on the topic for both tattooists and the people getting tattoos appears evident because of the high prevalence of tattoos in younger generations as well as the lower health orientation in men with several tattoos.

Man-made climate change is associated with several weather and environmental changes that can influence the extent of certain health risks. The article gives an overview of the challenges of communicating these health risks. Theoretical considerations are linked with the results of a representative population survey, in which 1018 participants aged 14 years and above were polled about their perception of climate change and its associated health risks.According to the survey results, the majority of the population is convinced that climate change is actually taking place. However, the data suggest that respondents regard the topic with psychological distance. Health risks associated with climate change also play a relatively minor role in the participants' perception.The theoretical considerations in connection with the empirical results show that targeted communication measures are needed to enhance awareness of the health risks associated with climate change among the general public. This requires not only a comprehensive provision of information, but also instructions and action plans for the practical implementation of that knowledge. Communication measures should take into account factors that can influence risk perception and the willingness to act. They should also be embedded in a strategic communication concept that allows different target groups to be addressed.