Search

Insufficient sleep and recurrent health complaints may increase the risk of poorer self-reported health in adolescence, yet the relationships between these factors are not well understood. This study aims to explore the association between poor self-reported health and insufficient sleep duration among 11, 13, and 15 years old adolescents in Latvia by assessing the moderation effects of age and gender and by considering the mediating effect of health complaints. Methods: Data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study on 2017/2018 of Latvia (n = 4412) were used for statistical analysis. Results: On average, 19.3% reported insufficient sleep duration on schooldays and 4.4% on non-school days. Of those with insufficient sleep duration, 5.8% reported poor self-reported health while this proportion was 2% among those with sufficient sleep. Poor self- reported health was associated insufficient sleep duration on school days (OR = 3.02; 95%CI 2.02-4.49), but not on non-schooldays. The association between insufficient sleep and poor self-reported health changed considerably after adjustment with health complaints (OR = 1.58;95%CI 1.03-2.43), however, it still remained significant. Conclusions: There is significant association between insufficient sleep and poor self-reported health regardless of total burden of health complaints.

In the rapidly progressing world where different sectors become more interconnected, cross-sectoral cooperation in health promotion lacks a specific set of instruments, navigating partners through the cooperation process in project implementation. Cross-sectoral cooperation is an everyday practice in business and has become an integral part of promoting health and wellbeing comprehensively and sustainably. In this paper, we propose a developed Model for cross-sectoral cooperation, which has been designed within the Interreg Baltic Sea Region project “Urban Labs for Better Health for All in the Baltic Sea Region” (Healthy Boost), aiming to boost cross-sectoral cooperation for health and wellbeing in cities and municipalities. The Model is developed based on literature research and self-assessment of cross-sectoral cooperation for health promotion in Healthy Boost partner cities and municipalities in Latvia, Poland, Russia, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden. Composed of five major domains (risk identification, leadership, coordination, communication, and motivation) and four stages of cooperation (mapping, planning, implementation, and assessment), it provides a checklist of helpful questions for identifying solutions effectively and systematically. The Model can be used both as a navigational tool and as an “emergency” tool to manage cross-sectoral cooperation challenges successfully.

Schools and municipalities play an important role in local health promotion. The Institute of Public Health at Rıga Stradiņš University in collaboration with the National Centre of Disease Prevention and Control carried out an online survey for studying the experiences and needs of health-promoting schools and municipalities in Latvia in implementing health promotion interventions. The aim of this study was to explore the context for developing new intervention model for a health behaviour change model within the Interreg BaltCityPrevention project “Innovative Lifestyle-Related Disease Prevention Model in the Baltic Sea Region.” Totally 112 municipalities and 100 schools within the National Health Promoting Networks were targeted. Only schools and municipalities that had previous experiences in health promotion intervention development were included in the analysis. This study showed that school-aged children were the most prevalent target group for the both schools and municipality interventions. The interventions in physical activity and nutrition used to be the most common areas for health behaviour changes. Health promotion schools and municipalities reported several significant differences in experienced difficulties and expected future needs in implementing health promotion interventions, which should be considered for increasing the capacity for better health promotion for both schools and municipalities in Latvia.