Search results for "FINLAND"
showing 10 items of 1724 documents
Does health literacy explain regional health disparities among adolescents in Finland?
2021
Summary Health literacy (HL)—as a broad range of health-related competencies—has been proposed to be a promising construct in understanding health disparities better, also among adolescents. Several factors have been found to explain differences in adolescents’ HL levels; however, not much is known about how different regions of a country or majority/minority status is associated with HL, or whether HL is associated with regional health disparities. The aim of this study was to examine and compare HL and health levels among majority- and minority-language-speaking adolescents living in different regions of Finland, and to explore if HL explains regional health disparities, taking into accou…
Empowerment-enabling home and school environments and self-rated health among Finnish adolescents
2018
SummaryPerceived health during adolescence has not only immediate consequences for individuals and for society, but also long-term. We need to understand better the health development in this period of the lifespan. Empowerment may be one pathway through which social factors and conditions translate into health effects. This study aimed to examine whether empowerment-enabling home and school environments are associated with self-rated health among adolescents, and whether the associations differ between genders, age or majority/minority language groups. Anonymous questionnaire data from respondents aged 11, 13 and 15 years were obtained from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children stud…
Associations Between Childhood Learning Disabilities and Adult-Age Mental Health Problems, Lack of Education, and Unemployment.
2019
We studied the impact of diverse subtypes of learning disabilities (LD) on adult-age mental health, education, and employment by comparing the LD group ( n = 430) with a matched control group without a known history of LD ( n = 2,149). The clinical archived data were merged with lifelong register data on sickness allowances/disability pensions granted on the basis of psychiatric illnesses, reimbursements for psychoactive medication, having a degree after compulsory education, and having received unemployment allowances. Differences emerged between the LD and control groups in all outcomes, suggesting that a higher proportion of individuals with LD had mental health problems compared to the…
Organizational justice at school and its associations with pupils' psychosocial school environment, health, and wellbeing.
2011
It has been shown that the psychosocial environment perceived by school staff is associated with children's academic performance and wellbeing. In this study we examined the associations between organizational justice (procedural and relational justice) as reported by school staff and pupils' perceptions of their school environment, health problems, academic performance, and absenteeism. We combined data from two surveys: for the staff (the Finnish Public Sector Study, n = 1946) and pupils (the Finnish school health promotion survey, n = 11,781 boys and 12,842 girls) of 136 secondary schools, collected during 2004-2005. Multilevel cumulative logistic regression analyses showed that after ad…
Predicting Delay in Reading Achievement in a Highly Transparent Language
2004
A random sample of 91 preschool children was assessed prior to receiving formal reading instruction. Verbal and nonverbal measures were used as predictors for the time of instruction required to accurately decode pseudowords in the highly orthographically regular Finnish language. After 2 years, participants were divided into four groups depending on the duration of instruction they had required to reach 90 % accuracy in their reading of pseudowords. Participants were classified as precocious decoders (PD), who could read at school entry; early decoders (ED), who learned to read within the first 4 months of Grade 1; ordinary decoders (OD), who learned to read within 9 months; and late deco…
Mortality and health-related habits in 900 Finnish former elite athletes and their brothers.
2018
BackgroundThere is conflicting evidence on the associations between participation in vigorous sports, health habits, familial factors and subsequent mortality. We investigated all-cause mortality and health-related behaviour among former elite athletes and their brothers.MethodsThe mortality of Finnish male former elite athletes, who had represented Finland between 1920 and 1965 (n=900) and their age-matched brothers (n=900), was followed from the time when athlete started an elite athlete career until 31 December 2015. The age-adjusted HRs were calculated by a paired Cox proportional hazards model. In 2001, surviving participants (n=199 athletes and n=199 age-matched brothers) reported the…
Long-term determinants of changes in television viewing time in adults: Prospective analyses from the Young Finns Study
2018
Purpose The long-term effects of sociodemographic and health characteristics on television viewing (TV) time changes have not been identified in adulthood. We aimed to examine the modifiable and non-modifiable determinants of changes in TV-time in young adults over 10 years. Methods Participants (N = 2929) aged 24-39 years were recruited between 2001 and 2011 from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Data were collected using questionnaires and a medical examination. The determinants of changes in TV-time were estimated using latent growth modeling for men and women separately. Results For men, inverse associations with initial levels of TV-time were observed for students becoming …
Physical Activity in Adolescence as a Predictor of Alcohol and Illicit Drug Use in Early Adulthood: A Longitudinal Population-Based Twin Study
2009
AbstractWe investigated prospectively whether physical activity level in adolescence predicts use of alcohol and illicit drugs in early adulthood. We studied 4,240 individual twins (1,870 twin pairs). We classified those who consistently reported frequent leisure physical activity at ages 16, 17 and 181/2 as persistent exercisers, those exercising less than three times monthly as persistently inactive, and all others as occasional exercisers. To control for familial confounds, within-family analyses compared activity-substance use associations in co-twins discordant for baseline physical activity. Individual-based analyses showed no clear association between baseline physical activity and s…
Transcultural adaption and preliminary evaluation of “understanding low back pain” patient education booklet
2019
Abstract Background Low back pain (LBP) is the number one cause of disability globally. LBP is a symptom associated with biological, psychological and social factors, and serious causes for pain are very rare. Unhelpful beliefs about LBP and inappropriate imaging are common. Practitioners report pressure from patients to provide inappropriate imaging. A recently developed patient education and management booklet, ‘Understanding low back pain’, was designed to target previously identified barriers for reducing inappropriate imaging. The booklet includes evidence-based information on LBP and supports communication between patients and practitioners. Our aim was to 1) describe the translation …
Change in physical activity and health-related quality of life in old age-A 10-year follow-up study.
2019
The aim of the study was to examine the association between change in leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and change in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and symptoms of depression during a 10-year follow-up. This prospective study included 1036 men and women (mean age at baseline = 61.2 years) from the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. Leisure-time physical activity was measured with a questionnaire, HRQoL with SF36 and depression symptoms with Beck's depression inventory (BDI). The association between the change in LTPA and change in HRQoL and BDI were investigated with sex-stratified general linear models adjusted for age, smoking, educational attainment, comorbidity score, and baselin…