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Purpose: This study was to explore the effect of preventive health education intervention in the knowledge, attitude, practice of betel nut chewing, and self-efficacy of anti-betel nut chewing for adolescent students. Methods: One hundred eighty-six indigenous samples were recruited, and divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group underwent fourteen-week classes regarding the prevention of betel nut chewing. Both groups took post-tests immediately after intervention in order to evaluate the instant effect of the teaching program. The follow-up (post-post-test) evaluated the instant improvement at the 28th week (14 weeks after the end of the class). Results: There was no difference in knowledge of the hazards of betel nut chewing among pre-tests, post-tests, and post-post-test in the experimental group. The attitude, practice of betel nut chewing and self-efficacy of anti-betel nut chewing aspects was significantly different among pre-tests, post-tests, and post-post-test after intervention. There was a significantly immediate and instant improvement after health education intervention. Conclusion: Health education enables students to better resist the use of betel nuts. This study confirmed the importance of health education programs in dealing with the health risks of betel nut chewing for the risk group Students. (Contains 4 tables.)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.11.018 Byline: I-Nong Lee (a), Wen-Chung Chang (b), Yu-Jue Hong (c), Shang-Chih Liao (d) Keywords: Knowledge discovery; Environmental policy; Water hardness; Health records; Uncertainty Abstract: This study uses knowledge discovery concepts to analyze large amounts of data step by step for the purpose of assisting in the formulation of environmental policy. We performed data cleansing and extracting from existing nation-wide databases, and used regression and classification techniques to analyze the data. The current water hardness in Kaohsiung, Taiwan contributes to the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) but exacerbates the development of renal stones (RS). However, to focus on water hardness alone to control RS would not be cost effective at all, because the existing database parameters do not adequately allow for a clear understanding of RS. Analysis of huge amounts of data can most often turn up the most reliable and convincing results and the use of existing databases can be cost-effective. Author Affiliation: (a) Faculty of Medical Information Management, Kaohsiung Medical University, 12F, #2, Lane 548, Jiou-Ju 1st Road, Kaohsiung City, 807, Taiwan, ROC (b) Central Region Recovery Plant, Environmental Protection Bureau, Kaohsiung city, Taiwan (c) School of Public Health, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan (d) Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Article History: Received 12 July 2004; Revised 22 November 2005; Accepted 29 November 2005

Data envelopment analysis (DEA), a cross-sectional study design based on secondary data analysis, was used to evaluate the relative operational efficiency of 16 dental departments in medical centers in Taiwan in 1999. The results indicated that 68.7% of all dental departments in medical centers had poor performance in terms of overall efficiency and scale efficiency. All relatively efficient dental departments were in private medical centers. Half of these dental departments were unable to fully utilize available medical resources. 75.0% of public medical centers did not take full advantage of medical resources at their disposal. In the returns to scale, 56.3% of dental departments in medical centers exhibited increasing returns to scale, due to the insufficient scale influencing overall hospital operational efficiency. Public medical centers accounted for 77.8% of the institutions affected. The scale of dental departments in private medical centers was more appropriate than those in public medical centers. In the sensitivity analysis, the numbers of residents, interns, and published papers were used to assess teaching and research. Greater emphasis on teaching and research in medical centers has a large effect on the relative inefficiency of hospital operation. Dental departments in private medical centers had a higher mean overall efficiency score than those in public medical centers, and the overall efficiency of dental departments in non-university hospitals was greater than those in university hospitals. There was no information to evaluate the long-term efficiency of each dental department in all hospitals. A different combination of input and output variables, using common multipliers for efficiency value measurements in DEA, may help establish different pioneering dental departments in hospitals.