Keeping Kids Smokefree: rationale, design, and implementation of a community, school, and family-based intervention to modify behaviors related to smoking among Māori and Pacific Island children in New Zealand.

Despite a concerted, sustained and comprehensive tobacco control effort, smoking is prevalent among young people in New Zealand, particularly for Māori and Pacific Island teenagers. Many took up smoking in their pre-teen years. New Zealand research has shown that daily smoking by children aged 14-15 years is strongly influenced by parental smoking.

A multimedia mobile phone-based youth smoking cessation intervention: findings from content development and piloting studies.

Background: While most young people who smoke want to quit, few access cessation support services. Mobile phone-based cessation programs are ideal for young people: mobile phones are the most common means of peer communication, and messages can be delivered in an anonymous manner, anywhere, anytime. Following the success of our text messaging smoking cessation program, we developed an innovative multimedia mobile phone smoking cessation intervention.

Cigarette fires and burns in a population of New Zealand smokers.

Objectives: To identify the proportion of adult cigarette smokers who have experienced cigarette-caused fires and burns and to describe smoker characteristics associated with increased risk of cigarette-caused fires and burns.

Methods: Data on cigarette-caused fires and burns were collected in the baseline questionnaire of a randomised trial of a smoking cessation intervention conducted in New Zealand between March 2006 and May 2007. Participants were adult callers to a national smoking cessation counselling service.

Shifting perceptions and challenging the profession's paradigms: reflections from an undergraduate week of population health.

The perception that population health is a poor cousin of the clinically orientated medical specialties has occurred despite a growing acknowledgement of the importance of a population health approach to the provision of medical care in the 21st Century. This perception appears entrenched within academic and clinical institutions, and is inherited by undergraduate students as they move through their training. Competing philosophies within modern medical curricula, medical socialisation, and historical professional belief structures have all contributed to both a covert and an overt scepticism towards population based approaches as being 'soft' and largely irrelevant.

Effects of improved home heating on asthma in community dwelling children: randomised controlled trial.

Objective: To assess whether non-polluting, more effective home heating (heat pump, wood pellet burner, flued gas) has a positive effect on the health of children with asthma.

Design: Randomised controlled trial.

Setting: Households in five communities in New Zealand.

Hepatitis B in a high prevalence New Zealand population: a mathematical model applied to infection control policy.

Background: Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is a vaccine preventable disease of global public health importance. The prevalence of CHB in New Zealand's Tongan population is over 10%, a level consistent with endemic infection, which contrasts to the low overall New Zealand prevalence (<0.5%).

A near miss: the importance of context in a public health informatics project in a New Zealand case study.

This article describes the near failure of an information technology (IT) system designed to support a government-funded, primary care-based hepatitis B screening program in New Zealand. Qualitative methods were used to collect data and construct an explanatory model. Multiple incorrect assumptions were made about participants, primary care workflows and IT capacity, software vendor user knowledge, and the health IT infrastructure.

New Zealand smoking cessation guidelines.

Aims: To summarise the key recommendations made in the 2007 New Zealand Smoking Cessation Guidelines.

Methods: A comprehensive literature review of smoking cessation interventions was undertaken in November 2006. Recommendations were formulated from the findings of the literature review in line with the methods recommended by the New Zealand Guidelines Group.

Smoking cessation competencies for health workers in New Zealand.

Aim: To outline competencies to guide smoking cessation delivery by health workers in New Zealand.

Methods: The cessation competencies were developed from a literature review of competencies measurable and relevant to New Zealand, the evidence for effectiveness of different interventions from the 2007 New Zealand Smoking Cessation Guidelines, and consultation with an expert group and smoking cessation providers throughout New Zealand.

Results: The literature review identified only a handful of relevant documents on smoking cessation workforce competencies.

Impact of tobacco smoking and smoking cessation on cardiovascular risk and disease.

Despite declines in smoking prevalence in many Western countries, tobacco use continues to grow in global importance as a leading preventable cause of cardiovascular disease. Tobacco smoke is both prothrombotic and atherogenic, increasing the risks of acute myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, stroke, aortic aneurysm and peripheral vascular disease. Even very low doses of exposure increase the risk of acute myocardial infarction.

Diagnostic accuracy of NicAlert cotinine test strips in saliva for verifying smoking status.

Semiquantitative immunoassay technology, in the form of rapid test strips, offers a less time-consuming and less costly alternative to other methods of verifying self-reported smoking status, such as gas chromatography-nitrogen phosphorus detection (GC). Unfortunately, information on the validity and reliability of some test strips in urine and saliva samples is not always available. This paper describes the diagnostic accuracy of one type of test strip currently available (NicAlert cotinine test strips; NCTS).

Under-18 year old callers to New Zealand's Quitline.

Aim: To investigate the characteristics of under-18 year old callers to New Zealand's Quitline (smoking-cessation telephone counselling service).

Methods: Analysis of routinely collected demographic and smoking history characteristics of under-18 year old Quitline callers in 2004 and 2005.

Results: In the 24 months of 2004-2005, 2371 under-18s called Quitline (for the first time) seeking smoking cessation support.

Supporting pregnant women to quit smoking: postal survey of New Zealand general practitioners and midwives' smoking cessation knowledge and practices.

Aim: This study examined New Zealand general practitioners' (GPs) and midwives' smoking cessation knowledge and support offered to pregnant women who smoke.

Method: Postal survey of a random sample of 776 New Zealand GPs and midwives, undertaken between September and October 2006.

Results: Responses were received from 39% (147/376) GPs and 57% (203/355) midwives.

Nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation.

Background: The aim of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is temporarily to replace much of the nicotine from cigarettes to reduce motivation to smoke and nicotine withdrawal symptoms, thus easing the transition from cigarette smoking to complete abstinence.

Objectives: The aims of this review were:To determine the effect of NRT compared to placebo in aiding smoking cessation, and to consider whether there is a difference in effect for the different forms of NRT (chewing gum, transdermal patches, nasal spray, inhalers and tablets/lozenges) in achieving abstinence from cigarettes. To determine whether the effect is influenced by the dosage, form and timing of use of NRT; the intensity of additional advice and support offered to the smoker; or the clinical setting in which the smoker is recruited and treated.

After the smoke has cleared: evaluation of the impact of a new national smoke-free law in New Zealand.

Background: The New Zealand 2003 Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act (SEAA) extended existing restrictions on smoking in office and retail workplaces by introducing smoking bans in bars, casinos, members' clubs, restaurants and nearly all other workplaces from 10 December 2004.

Objective: To evaluate the implementation and outcomes of aspects of the SEAA relating to smoke-free indoor workplaces and public places, excluding schools and early learning centres.

Methods: Data were gathered on public and stakeholder attitudes and support for smoke-free policies; dissemination of information, enforcement activities and compliance; exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) in the workplace; changes in health outcomes linked to SHS exposure; exposure to SHS in homes; smoking prevalence and smoking related behaviours; and economic impacts.

Bringing health home: householder and provider perspectives on the healthy housing programme in Auckland, New Zealand.

This paper describes the Healthy Housing Programme, an ongoing intervention initiated for New Zealand public housing tenants in 2000 and presents findings from an evaluation conducted over three consecutive years. The Programme aims to improve well-being by addressing the housing circumstances of families at high risk of infectious diseases, experiencing high levels of deprivation, and living in areas with high concentrations of low-income, and largely public, housing. This is achieved through improving the housing stock and better integrating housing, health and social services.

Mobilising Pacific people for health: insights from a hepatitis B screening programme in Auckland, New Zealand.

This paper describes the recruitment and participation of Pacific people in a large hepatitis B screening programme undertaken in Auckland, New Zealand between April 2000 and December 2002. Thirty three percent (32,700) of the adult Pacific population was screened, with coverage highest among the Tongan community (50%) largely though the efforts of two active ethnic specific Pacific and non-Pacific providers using combinations of language-targeted promotion, outreach visits and opportunistic recruitment at general practice visits. Important differences were found in recruitment methods and patterns between Pacific populations and for different age groups.

Blue-collar workplaces: a setting for reducing heart health inequalities in New Zealand?

Aim: To review the evidence for the effectiveness of workplaces as settings for cardiovascular health promotion and reduction of heart health inequalities in New Zealand.

Methods: Literature review and structured appraisal of 154 articles meeting inclusion criteria, of which one review and three trials addressed cardiovascular interventions specifically, and four systematic reviews addressed the effectiveness of workplace health promotion programmes generally.

Results: The reviewed studies showed that workplaces have good potential as settings for health promotion.

A clinical imperative: assisting patients who smoke to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.

The role of tobacco smoking as a cause of cardiovascular disease is now unequivocal and well-documented in literally hundreds of epidemiologic and biomedical studies over the past 50 years. Cessation of smoking, on the other hand, swiftly and profoundly reduces the risks of a cardiovascular event. Thus, smoking cessation should be seen as perhaps the most effective lifesaving intervention in the physician's armamentarium.

Supermarket sales data: feasibility and applicability in population food and nutrition monitoring.

Population food and nutrition monitoring plays a critical role in understanding suboptimal nutrition at the population level, yet current monitoring methods such as national surveys are not practical to undertake on a continuous basis. Supermarket sales data potentially address this gap by providing detailed, timely, and inexpensive monitoring data for informing policies and anticipating trends. This paper reviews 22 studies that used supermarket sales data to examine food purchasing patterns.

Screening and intervention for alcohol problems among patients admitted following unintentional injury: a missed opportunity?

Aim: To describe current screening and intervention practice for alcohol problems in a New Zealand trauma centre.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of a trauma registry database at a metropolitan hospital in New Zealand, and hospital chart review for documentation of alcohol screening and intervention on a random sample of 120 adults, stratified by ethnicity and blood alcohol status, admitted following unintentional injury for the period January 2003 to December 2004.

Results: Among 1970 patients admitted following unintentional injury during the study period, 23% had a blood alcohol test at admission.

Direct laser writing of three-dimensional photonic crystal lattices within a PbS quantum-dot-doped polymer material.

We report on the synthesis of an optically homogenous PbS quantum-dot-doped polymer material of thickness up to 100 micrometers. It is shown that high quality micro-void channels of submicrometer diameters can be directly fabricated into this nanocomposite by using an ultrafast femtosecond laser beam. Periodically stacked channels in the form of a three-dimensional photonic crystal woodpile lattices reveals a main stop gaps as well as higher-order gaps that overlaps the near-infrared emission wavelength range of PbS quantum dots.

High-temperature seedless synthesis of gold nanorods.

We demonstrate seedless synthesis of gold nanorods at high temperatures up to 97 degrees C. Using the correct silver nitrate concentration is crucial for formation of rod-shaped particles at all temperatures. We observed a decrease of nanorod length with increasing temperature, while the width stays constant throughout the temperature range.

A survey of New Zealand's Territorial Local Authorities' policies, plans and programs promoting physical activity.

Objective: To investigate New Zealand's Territorial Local Authorities' (TLAs') policies and plans promoting physical activity.

Method: Postal survey of senior planners in New Zealand's TLAs, undertaken 2004/05.

Results: Only 59% of respondents reported that their TLA had an overall plan or policy for physical activity promotion.