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BackgroundPatient-centered research requires a focus on the needs and priorities of patients. Because patient engagement can result in the discovery of important topics not currently prioritized by research programs, topic generation, and prioritization activities conducted with patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders are essential. To develop patient-centered research agendas for obesity and diabetes, the Research Action for Health Network conducted topic generation and prioritization activities with multistakeholder research advisory groups.ObjectivesThe purpose of this case study was to demonstrate how methods for engaging patients in topic generation and prioritization can be implemented in practice for the development of a patient-centered research agenda.Research designFour multistakeholder groups comprising patients, clinicians, and researchers met 4-5 times between November 2014 and July 2015 to generate and prioritize topics for obesity and diabetes research. Topics were prioritized using an iterative engagement process, in which themes were identified and resulting topics were refined and ranked over multiple meetings.ParticipantsSixty-four patients, clinicians, and researchers participated in 2 obesity and 2 diabetes advisory groups. The majority of participants (64.0%) were patients, followed by clinicians (23.4%), researchers (9.4%), and parents of children with diabetes (3.1%).ResultsTen and 12 priority topics were identified for obesity and diabetes, respectively. The resulting research agendas were disseminated to patients, researchers, and clinicians.ConclusionsPatient engagement has the potential to enrich our understanding of patient priorities for research. The results from this process suggest that convening in-person multistakeholder groups can be an effective way to generate research topics that reflect patients' priorities. Engagement strategies should be focused not only on the development of patient-centered research topics but also on the implementation of these topics into research studies.

Background: Louisiana has one of the highest rates of overweight and obese children in the United States. The Healthy School Food Collaborative (HSFC) was created to allow New Orleans's schools to select their own healthy school Food Service Provider (FSP) with requirements for higher nutritional standards than traditional options. The goal of this cross-sectional study was to examine whether HSFC membership was associated with lunch consumption rates in elementary school children. Methods: An 8-week plate waste study examining 18,070 trays of food among fourth and fifth graders was conducted. Participants included 7 schools and the 3 FSPs (2 HSFC and 1 non-HSFC member) that serviced them. Mixed models analysis examined whether consumption rates of food items differed among FSPs. Results: On average, students consumed 307 cal during lunch. Analyses showed significant differences in consumption rates of entrée, vegetables, fruit, and milk between the 3 FSPs (p < 0.01). The highest consumption rate was among entrées at 65%. One HSFC provider had consumption levels consistent with the non-HSFC FSP. Conclusions: Overall, students consumed less than 60% of the US Department of Agriculture recommended calories for school lunch. While overall caloric consumption was higher among the non-HSFC schools, interventions to increase lunch consumption across all schools are needed.

Louisiana's 2007 Smoke-Free Air Act (SFAA) is a partial smoking ban that prohibited smoking in all workplaces except for bars and gaming facilities. This study examined the impact of the SFAA on employment in one of Louisiana's largest industries, tourism, and on hospital admissions for heart attacks. To do so, the research team used an interrupted time-series analysis of employment rates of the hospitality industry and hospital discharges for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Hospitality industry employment rates did not decrease with the implementation of the SFAA, and had no significant impact on hospital discharges for AMI. The findings of this study suggest that the SFAA did not negatively affect the employment rate in Louisiana's extensive tourism industry. The findings also suggest that this partial smoking ban did not significantly impact the health of Louisiana residents, as measured by AMI discharges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofit organizations with limited capacity and resources must be strategic when designing, implementing, and evaluating social marketing campaigns. The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living, a nonprofit public health program, implemented a mass media campaign in 2012, with the goal of increasing advocacy for policy change around the smoke-free movement. The campaign was accompanied by a mixed-quantitative evaluation that was grounded in the diffusion of innovations theory. The evaluation consisted of unique, yet complementary, analytical components, employing traditional survey methods to measure population exposure to the campaign and Google Analytics to segment campaign website visitors into actionable categories for future programmatic efforts. Results from this study demonstrate that the 2012 Tobacco-Free Living mass media campaign was moderately effective in reaching its target audience and highly effective in using Google Analytics to identify a group of activists (i.e., innovators) in support of the smoke-free policy change. This study offers several recommendations for nonprofit organizations to consider when implementing and evaluating similar social marketing campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]