Publications by authors named "Heather MacDonald"

Background: Investment in scale-up and sustainment of effective health-promoting programs is often hampered by competing demands on scarce health dollars. Thus, optimizing programs to reduce resource use (e.g.

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The rapid evolution of healthcare, driven by the rise of new health technologies and the growing emphasis on evidence-based care, requires health professionals skilled in assessing and utilizing evidence to support decision-making. Health technology assessments (HTAs), which involve evidence synthesis and appraisal, analysis across various domains, and tailoring evidence to local contexts, can develop these skills. These skills are also part of medical competencies.

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Rationale: New pulmonary rehabilitation models can improve access to this effective but underutilised treatment for people with chronic respiratory disease, however cost effectiveness has not been determined.

Objective: To compare the cost effectiveness of telerehabilitation, including videoconferencing and synchronous supervision, to standard center-based pulmonary rehabilitation.

Methods: Prospective economic analyses were undertaken from a societal perspective alongside a randomised controlled equivalence trial in which adults with stable chronic respiratory disease undertook an 8-week outpatient center-based program or telerehabilitation.

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This guide outlines general issues in searching for studies; describes the main sources of potential studies; and discusses how to plan the search process, design, and carry out search strategies, manage references found during the search process and document and report the search process.

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The search methods used in systematic reviews provide the foundation for establishing the body of literature from which conclusions are drawn and recommendations made. Searches should aim to be comprehensive and reporting of search methods should be transparent and reproducible. Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews strive to adhere to the best methodological guidance available for this type of searching.

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Importance: There are insufficient data comparing 16α-18F-fluoro-17β-estradiol (FES) positron emission tomography (PET) computed tomography (CT) with standard-of-care imaging (SOC) for staging locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) or evaluating suspected recurrence.

Objective: To determine the detection rate of FES PET/CT and SOC for distant metastases in patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive LABC and recurrences in patients with ER-positive BC and suspected recurrence.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This diagnostic study was conducted as a single-center phase 2 trial, from January 2021 to September 2023.

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Public health restrictions to protect physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic had unintended effects on mental health, which may have disproportionately affected some potentially vulnerable groups. This scoping review of qualitative research provides a narrative synthesis of new mothers' perspectives on their mental health during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions through pregnancy to the postpartum period. Database searches in PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO sought primary research studies published until February 2023, which focused on new mothers' self-perceived mental health during the pandemic ( = 55).

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Thin plate smoothing spline models, covering Canada and the continental United States, were developed using ANUSPLIN for 30-year (1991-2020) monthly mean maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation. These models employed monthly weather station values from the North American dataset published by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Maximum temperature mean absolute errors (MAEs) ranged between 0.

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Over the last 4 decades, physical activity researchers have invested heavily in determining "what works" to promote healthy behaviors in schools. Single and multicomponent school-based interventions that target physical education, active transportation, and/or classroom activity breaks effectively increased physical activity among children and youth. Yet, few of these interventions are ever scaled-up and implemented under real-world conditions and in diverse populations.

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Information literacy skills are an important part of research skills for undergraduate science students. This case study presents a novel approach to developing these types of research skills. By deconstructing the research process into separate steps, explicitly defining, and practicing the skills involved, students can progressively develop these skills and apply them.

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Background: Various studies have demonstrated gender disparities in workplace settings and the need for further intervention. This study identifies and examines evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on interventions examining gender equity in workplace or volunteer settings. An additional aim was to determine whether interventions considered intersection of gender and other variables, including PROGRESS-Plus equity variables (e.

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Sedentary behavior (SB) or sitting is associated with multiple unfavorable health outcomes. Bone tissue responds to imposed gravitational and muscular strain with there being some evidence suggesting a causal link between SB and poor bone health. However, there are no population-based data on the longitudinal relationship between SB, bone change, and incidence of fragility fractures.

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Evidence is sparse on how community-based health-promoting programs can be culturally adapted for racially minoritized, immigrant older adult populations. Choose to Move (CTM) is an evidence-based health-promoting program that enhances physical activity and mobility and diminished social isolation and loneliness in older adults in British Columbia, Canada. However, racially minoritized older adults were not reached in initial offerings.

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Forest transition theory, as introduced by Alexander Mather, depicts forest recovery patterns often occurring in the wake of agricultural intensification and farmland abandonment. Since the forest transition theory was introduced, multiple pathways have been described in the scholarly literature to explain forest transition phases via varied socio-economic forces. This analysis of a set of 78 country-specific case studies published from 2019 to 2022 confirms social inequity in documented forest transitions; forest transition case studies from 2019 to 2022 were concentrated in highly developed countries.

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This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The review will address the following research questions: (1) What are the effects of economic development interventions on the economic outcomes of people in humanitarian settings? What factors explain any observed variations in effect such as setting, programme design features or duration? (2) What are the effects of economic development interventions on the food security, nutrition, the psychosocial and mental health, and the physical health outcomes of populations in humanitarian settings? (3) What are the success factors and barriers that affect the implementation and effectiveness of economic development interventions on populations affected by humanitarian crisis?

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Ionising radiation is a human carcinogen, but the evidence is less clear that exposure to low-dose ionising radiation (LDIR) increases the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes. We synthesised the literature of chronic occupational exposure to LDIR and cardiovascular disease, particularly for ischaemic heart disease (IHD).The literature search was conducted using three databases including studies published between 1990 and 2022.

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Women living with HIV (WLWH) may be at higher risk for osteoporosis and fragility fractures. However, limited prospective data describe long-term trajectories of bone mineral density (BMD) in WLWH versus women without HIV. Thus, in this prospective study, we aimed to compare 10-year change in areal BMD (aBMD) between WLWH ( = 49; 36.

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Article Synopsis
  • Heating degree days (HDD) are a key measure to evaluate the heating energy needs influenced by climate change in Canada, providing useful data for decision-making.
  • This study offers spatial datasets of HDD for two timeframes (1951-1980 and 1981-2010) based on extensive temperature observations from 1339 and 1679 stations, respectively.
  • The models’ accuracy is quantified by mean absolute error (MAE), showing a slight increase from 124.2 C-days in the earlier period to 137.6 C-days in the later one, with detailed maps illustrating error distribution available at approximately 2 km resolution.
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Article Synopsis
  • * 158 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with over 973,000 participants were analyzed to assess the sustainability, adherence, and fidelity of these interventions.
  • * Results indicate that while KT interventions generally improve quality of life, only a small percentage were evaluated for sustainability, adherence, and fidelity, indicating a need for further research in these areas.
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This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The main objective of the review is to answer the following questions: What is the impact of mechanisation on agriculture? What is the impact of mechanisation on women's economic empowerment? The study will review the impact of mechanisation on labour demand and supply, land and labour productivity, farmers' incomes, health and women's empowerment. All literature will be considered, including nonintervention studies and studies not reporting gender-disaggregated results.

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Background: Choose to Move (CTM), an effective health-promoting intervention for older adults, was scaled-up across British Columbia, Canada. Adaptations that enable implementation at scale may lead to 'voltage drop'-diminished positive effects of the intervention. For CTM Phase 3 we assessed: i.

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This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The objective of this systematic review is to assess the effectiveness of interventions with gender transformative approach (GTA) components in improving women's empowerment in low- and middle-income countries, and to curate evidence on the mechanisms through which GTA works to improve women's empowerment in agriculture.

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Objectives: To chart the global literature on gender equity in academic health research.

Design: Scoping review.

Participants: Quantitative studies were eligible if they examined gender equity within academic institutions including health researchers.

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Replacement of fossil fuels with bioenergy, often in concert with carbon capture and storage, plays an important role in published low-emission pathways from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other agencies. National and regional net-zero greenhouse gas emission commitments have caused a dramatic increase in forest biomass consumption globally, and the rise has been accompanied by debates in the scholarly literature and in society at large about the ecological and climate change impacts of forest biomass. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of media headlines about forest bioenergy published in 75 Canadian newspapers from 2010 to 2020.

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