Publications by authors named "Kara Hall"

With the escalating prevalence of obesity, the association between obesity and cancer is a growing public health concern. Obesity will soon surpass tobacco smoking as the most important preventable cause of cancer. Obesity-driven mechanisms can alter cell functions to induce metabolic changes, chronic inflammation, and insulin resistance that are believed to contribute to cancer risk and development; yet the specific underlying biological mechanisms of obesity-related cancer development are largely unknown.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To examine associations between 1) sociodemographics and 2) trust in health information sources with climate change harm perception.

Methods: Weighted adjusted logistic regression models examined correlates of climate change harm perception (harm vs no harm/don't know) among a nationally representative sample of U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To examine if the relationship between neuroticism and physician avoidance/physician visit concerns are mediated by perceptions that cancer is associated with death ("cancer mortality salience"; CMS) for cancer survivors to inform public health interventions and tailored health communications.

Methods: Cancer survivors comprised 42.3% of the total sample (n = 525).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Large translational research initiatives can strengthen efficiencies and support science with enhanced impact when practical conceptual models guide their design, implementation, and evaluation. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program brings together data from 72 ongoing maternal-child cohort studies - involving more than 50,000 children and over 1200 investigators - to conduct transdisciplinary solution-oriented research that addresses how early environmental exposures influence child health. ECHO uses a multi-team system approach to consortium-wide data collection and analysis to generate original research that informs programs, policies, and practices to enhance children's health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A growing body of literature examines the potential benefits of a time-based diet strategy referred to as time-restricted eating (TRE). TRE, a type of intermittent fasting, restricts the time of eating to a window of 4-12 h/d but allows ad libitum intake during eating windows. Although TRE diets do not overtly attempt to reduce energy intake, preliminary evidence from small studies suggests that TRE can lead to concomitant reduction in total energy, improvements in metabolic health, and weight loss.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rapidly advancing solutions requires our community to continuously re-examine successes of yesterday to inspire new approaches for today while collaboratively envisioning what’s needed for tomorrow.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Population-based data from the National Health Interview Survey were examined to provide estimates of a wide range of health behaviors in cancer survivors (ie, physical activity, sun protection, alcohol use, cigarette and e-cigarette use, sleep, and diet) and trends over time.

Methods: Data were collected from 92 257 participants across 3 waves of the National Health Interview Survey. A total of 8050 participants reported having had cancer (2428 in 2005, 2333 in 2010, 3289 in 2015).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although the United States is often ahead in both research and health care fields, it lags behind peer countries in many population health indicators. To address these complex health problems that often reflect the intersection of many socioeconomic and health issues, it is essential that scientists work collaboratively across distinct disciplines. Women's health is but one area which can benefit from such an approach given the multifaceted and complex issues underlying the different aspects of women's health research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Problem And Background: Psychotropic medication use is increasingly common among pregnant women. Many women solicit information from other mothers about the safety of these medications for use during pregnancy, yet little is known about the specific advice they receive.

Aim: The purpose of the current study was to examine the type of feedback women receive on a popular internet message board about psychotropic medication use during pregnancy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Behavior change research to promote health and prevent disease increasingly relies on a complex set of interacting characteristics across levels of influence such as biological, psychological, behavioral, interpersonal, and environmental. How to best develop health-related interventions that incorporate the individual, the macro-environment, and their interactions remains a challenge. This article considers a set of key dimensions that constitute what we refer to as the ecology of research across a broad context of multilevel research (MLR), spanning fundamental multilevel research (FMLR), multilevel intervention research (MLIR), and multilevel implementation science (MIS).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Collaborations among researchers and across disciplinary, organizational, and cultural boundaries are vital to address increasingly complex challenges and opportunities in science and society. In addition, unprecedented technological advances create new opportunities to capitalize on a broader range of expertise and information in scientific collaborations. Yet rapid increases in the demand for scientific collaborations have outpaced changes in the factors needed to support teams in science, such as institutional structures and policies, scientific culture, and funding opportunities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The translation of basic behavioral science discoveries into practical strategies represents a promising approach to developing more effective preventive interventions to improve health. Since translational research inevitably involves making use of diverse perspectives from multiple disciplines, it is best conducted as a transdisciplinary enterprise. In this paper, we discuss current strategies used by NIH to support transdisciplinary translational behavioral (TDTB) research, summarize successful efforts, and highlight challenges encountered in conducting such work (ranging from conceptual to organizational to methodological).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Interventions using theory should change behavior and identify both mechanisms of effect and necessary conditions. To date, inconsistent description of "use of theory" has limited understanding of how theory improves intervention impact.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the use of theory in health behavior intervention development by coding grant proposals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The National Cancer Institute has been a leader in supporting transdisciplinary (TD) team science. From 2005-2010, the NCI supported Transdisciplinary Research on Energetic and Cancer I (TREC I), a center initiative fostering the TD integration of social, behavioral, and biological sciences to examine the relationships among obesity, nutrition, physical activity and cancer. In the final year of TREC I, we conducted qualitative in-depth-interviews with 31 participating investigators and trainees to learn more about their experiences with TD team science, including challenges, facilitating factors, strategies for success, and impacts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Strategies for constructing and maintaining cross-disciplinary teams are in their infancy. We outline strategies to support one form, transdisciplinary research, in a major initiative of the National Cancer Institute, the Transdisciplinary Research in Energetics and Cancer 2 (TREC2) initiative. Discussion of the TREC2 sites' experiences with transdisciplinarity is structured around a conceptual model that identifies four iterative phases of transdisciplinary research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer prevention postdoctoral fellowships have existed since the 1970s. The National Cancer Institute facilitated a meeting by a panel of experts in April 2013 to consider four important topics for future directions for cancer prevention postdoctoral training programs: (i) future research needs; (ii) underrepresented disciplines; (iii) curriculum; and (iv) career preparation. Panelists proffered several areas needing more research or emphasis, ranging from computational science to culture.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Over the past several decades, there has been burgeoning interest and investment in large transdisciplinary (TD) team science initiatives that aim to address complex societal problems. Despite this trend, TD training opportunities in the health sciences remain limited, and evaluations of these opportunities are even more uncommon due to funding constraints. We had the unique opportunity to conduct an exploratory study to examine the potential outcomes and impacts of TD training in a National Cancer Institute-supported initiative for TD research and training-the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer I (TREC I) initiative.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs) have a high power to weight ratio and possess unique characteristics which make them ideal actuators for applications involving human interaction. PMAs are difficult to control due to nonlinear dynamics, presenting challenges in system implementation. Despite these challenges, PMAs have great potential as a source of resistance for strength training and rehabilitation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF