Background: Reducing weight stigma in healthcare is critical to supporting and improving the health of people living with overweight or obesity and decreasing the risk of adverse patient outcomes. We were invited as stigma researchers to participate in an online workshop alongside community members, healthcare professionals and policymakers to codesign guidance for reducing weight stigma in healthcare. This workshop prompted us to reflect on why and how weight stigma should be addressed in healthcare, and to provide recommendations for healthcare professionals and policymakers to reduce weight stigma in healthcare.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAust N Z J Public Health
June 2024
Objective: To determine the extent and nature of news media coverage generated from press releases made by top-selling quick-service restaurants in Australia.
Methods: We conducted a content analysis of press releases made between July 2021 and June 2022 by the five largest quick-service restaurant brands in Australia by brand share, including coding their main subject. We then conducted a content analysis of news media coverage related to the press releases, including coding its slant towards the brand.
The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) pUS2 glycoprotein exploits the host's endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD) pathway to degrade major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) and prevent antigen presentation. Beyond MHC-I, pUS2 has been shown to target a range of cellular proteins for degradation, preventing their cell surface expression. Here we have identified a novel pUS2 target, ER-resident protein lectin mannose binding 2 like (LMAN2L).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMass media campaigns are frequently used to address public health issues. Considering the considerable cost, there has been little analysis of why campaigns sometimes fail. This study used a sequential mixed methods approach to explore the mechanisms that can lead to failure and to identify what can be done to avoid or overcome common mistakes in campaign planning, implementation, and evaluation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDelayed engagement with health services is a key contributor to poorer health outcomes experienced by men. Patterns of health service usage which reduce the opportunity for disease prevention and health promotion appear to be especially prominent amongst young men. To identify the multiple and intersecting determinants of young men's help-seeking practices and health services usage, this review uses the social ecological model (SEM) to guide a critical synthesis of the literature on barriers and facilitators experienced by young men in accessing health services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany viruses downregulate their cognate receptors, facilitating virus replication and pathogenesis via processes that are not yet fully understood. In the case of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1), the receptor binding protein glycoprotein D (gD) has been implicated in downregulation of its receptor nectin1, but current understanding of the process is limited. Some studies suggest that gD on the incoming virion is sufficient to achieve nectin1 downregulation, but the virus-encoded E3 ubiquitin ligase ICP0 has also been implicated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFModified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) virus does not replicate in human cells and is the vaccine deployed to curb the current outbreak of mpox. Here, we conduct a multiplexed proteomic analysis to quantify >9000 cellular and ~80% of viral proteins throughout MVA infection of human fibroblasts and macrophages. >690 human proteins are down-regulated >2-fold by MVA, revealing a substantial remodelling of the host proteome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Psychoanal Assoc
June 2023
We present a method to infer the 3D pose of mice, including the limbs and feet, from monocular videos. Many human clinical conditions and their corresponding animal models result in abnormal motion, and accurately measuring 3D motion at scale offers insights into health. The 3D poses improve classification of health-related attributes over 2D representations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Social media platforms are frequently used in health communication campaigns. Common understandings of campaign effects posit a sequential and linear series of steps from exposure to behavior change, commonly known as the hierarchy of effects model (HOE). These concepts need to be reevaluated in the age of social media, which are interactional and communal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrailty indexes (FIs) provide quantitative measurements of nonspecific health decline and are particularly useful as longitudinal monitors of morbidity in aging studies. For mouse studies, frailty assessments can be taken noninvasively, but they require handling and direct observation that is labor-intensive to the scientist and stress inducing to the animal. Here, we implement, evaluate, and provide a refined digital FI composed entirely of computational analyses of home-cage video and compare it to manually obtained frailty scores in both C57BL/6 and genetically heterogeneous Diversity Outbred mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeople living with obesity experience weight stigma in most social settings. This has a negative impact on their health and quality of life. A primary contributor to weight stigma is the misconception that obesity is caused by factors solely within an individual's control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHerpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) infects the stratified epithelia of the epidermis, oral or genital mucosa, where the main cell type is the keratinocyte. Here we have used nTERT human keratinocytes to generate a CRISPR-Cas9 knockout (KO) of the primary candidate HSV1 receptor, nectin1, resulting in a cell line that is refractory to HSV1 entry. Nonetheless, a small population of KO cells was able to support infection which was not blocked by a nectin1 antibody and hence was not a consequence of residual nectin1 expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: News media representation of preventive health policies can influence public discussion and political decision making, impacting policy implementation and sustainability. This study analysed news media coverage of the contested 'last drinks' alcohol laws in Sydney, Australia, to understand the arguments made by different 'actors' (stakeholders) regarding the laws and provide insights on how preventive health policies are positioned within media discourse.
Methods: We identified print and online news media articles discussing the laws from 2014 to 2020.
Public Health Res Pract
June 2021
Mass media campaigns are common interventions used in public health, but publicly available evaluations of such campaigns are few and far between, and particularly so for formative evaluations. In 2019, the Heart Foundation released a new campaign called 'Heartless Words', including a major advertisement that sparked instant controversy. In the backlash that followed, very little was said about the importance of rigorous pre-campaign formative evaluations and sharing these evaluations for the benefit of other researchers, practitioners and policy makers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnveloped viruses exploit cellular trafficking pathways for their morphogenesis, providing potential scope for the development of new antiviral therapies. We have previously shown that herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) utilizes recycling endocytic membranes as the source of its envelope, in a process involving four Rab GTPases. To identify novel factors involved in HSV1 envelopment, we have screened a small interfering RNA (siRNA) library targeting over 80 human trafficking proteins, including coat proteins, adaptor proteins, fusion factors, fission factors, and Rab effectors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Facebook is widely used by Australia's First Nations people and has significant potential to promote health. However, evidence-based guidelines for its use in health promotion are lacking. Smoking prevalence among Australia's First Nations people is nearly 3 times higher than other Australians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Make Healthy Normal obesity prevention mass media campaign was implemented in New South Wales, Australia from 2015 to 2018. This study evaluated Phase 2 (2017-18) of that campaign, using three cross-sectional online surveys with men aged 18-54 years (n = 4352) and six focus groups with men aged 35-54 years and parents with children aged 5-12 years (n = 38), reflecting the campaign's target audiences. We used linear and logistic regressions to examine changes over time in key outcomes, consistent with the campaign's theorized hierarchy of effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIssue Addressed: Published evaluations of population-level social marketing campaigns predominantly focus on impact and outcome evaluation. Evaluation of complementary locally implemented activities and programs, despite being common and important components of social marketing campaigns are rarely published. This study sought to examine the drivers of engagement of local implementers in the Make Healthy Normal campaign, implemented in New South Wales (NSW), Australia from 2015 to 2018, and to describe their engagement with the campaign as well as the scope and extent of complementary activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Objectives and importance of study: News media portrayal of public health issues influences public opinion, policy action and decision making. This study aimed to analyse the use of 'nanny state' frames in Australian news media coverage; identify the stakeholders invoking this frame; determine which public health-related policies attract such framing; and investigate whether 'nanny state' framing is directly challenged in news coverage.
Study Type: A qualitative framing analysis.
Public Health Res Pract
July 2019