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Astrid Steinbrecher

Other affiliations: German Cancer Research Center
Bio: Astrid Steinbrecher is an academic researcher from Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine. The author has contributed to research in topics: Systematic review & Life course approach. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 35 publications receiving 1461 citations. Previous affiliations of Astrid Steinbrecher include German Cancer Research Center.

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The current framework provides a preliminary overview of factors which may account for PA behaviour across the life course and are most relevant to the European community.
Abstract: A large proportion of European children, adults and older adults do not engage in sufficient physical activity (PA). Understanding individual and contextual factors associated with PA behaviours is essential for the identification and implementation of effective preventative environments, policies, and programmes that can promote an active lifestyle across life course and can potentially improve health. The current paper intends to provide 1) a multi-disciplinary, Pan-European and life course view of key determinants of PA behaviours and 2) a proposal of how these factors may cluster. After gathering a list of 183 potential PA behaviours-associated factors and a consensus meeting to unify/consolidate terminology, a concept mapping software was used to collate European experts’ views of 106 identified factors for youth (<19 years), adults (19–64 years), and older adults (≥65 years). The analysis evaluated common trends in the clustering of factors and the ratings of the distinct factors’ expected modifiability and population-level impact on PA behaviours across the life course. Priority for research was also assessed for each cluster. The concept mapping resulted in six distinct clusters, broadly merged in two themes: 1) the ‘Person’, which included clusters ‘Intra-Personal Context and Wellbeing’ and ‘Family and Social Economic Status’ (42 % of all factors) and 2) the ‘Society’, which included the remaining four clusters ‘Policy and Provision’, ‘Cultural Context and Media’, ‘Social Support and Modelling’, and ‘Supportive Environment’ (58 % of all factors). Overall, 25 factors were rated as the most impactful on PA behaviours across the life course and being the most modifiable. They were mostly situated in the ‘Intra-Personal Context and Wellbeing’ cluster. Furthermore, 16 of them were rated as top priority for research. The current framework provides a preliminary overview of factors which may account for PA behaviour across the life course and are most relevant to the European community. These insights could potentially be a foundation for future Pan-European research on how these factors might interact with each other, and assist policy makers to identify appropriate interventions to maximize PA behaviours and thus the health of European citizens.

303 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
19 Jan 2018-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: Findings suggest that for adults, convincing evidence supports a relationship between PA and socioeconomic status (SES), especially in relation to leisure time (positive relationship) and occupational PA (negative relationship).
Abstract: Background To date, the scientific literature on socioeconomic correlates and determinants of physical activity behaviours has been dispersed throughout a number of systematic reviews, often focusing on one factor (eg education or parental income) in one specific age group (eg pre-school children or adults) The aim of this umbrella review is to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of the scientific literature from previously conducted research by summarising and synthesising the importance and strength of the evidence related to socioeconomic correlates and determinants of PA behaviours across the life course Methods Medline, Embase, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and SPORTDiscus were searched for systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies investigating the association between socioeconomic determinants of PA and PA itself (from January 2004 to September 2017) Data extraction evaluated the importance of determinants, strength of evidence, and methodological quality of the selected papers The full protocol is available from PROSPERO (PROSPERO2014:CRD42015010616) Results Nineteen reviews were included Moderate methodological quality emerged For adults, convincing evidence supports a relationship between PA and socioeconomic status (SES), especially in relation to leisure time (positive relationship) and occupational PA (negative relationship) Conversely, no association between PA and SES or parental SES was found for pre-school, school-aged children and adolescents Conclusions Available evidence on the socioeconomic determinants of PA behaviour across the life course is probable (shows fairly consistent associations) at best While some evidence is available for adults, less was available for youth This is mainly due to a limited quantity of primary studies, weak research designs and lack of accuracy in the PA and SES assessment methods employed Further PA domain specific studies using longitudinal design and clear measures of SES and PA assessment are required

188 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
07 Aug 2017-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: This umbrella SLR provided a comprehensive overview of the physical environment determinants of physical activity across the life course and has highlighted a number of key determinants that may be associated with overall physical activity.
Abstract: Background: Participation in regular physical activity is associated with a multitude of health benefits across the life course. However, many people fail to meet PA recommendations. Despite a plethora of studies, the evidence regarding the environmental (physical) determinants of physical activity remains inconclusive. Objective: To identify the physical environmental determinants that influence PA across the life course. Methods: An online systematic literature search was conducted using MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and SPORTDiscus. The search was limited to studies published in English (January 2004 to April 2016). Only systematic literature reviews (SLRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) of observational studies, that investigated the association between physical determinants and physical activity outcomes, were eligible for inclusion. The extracted data were assessed on the importance of determinants, strength of evidence and methodological quality. Results: The literature search identified 28 SLRs and 3 MAs on 67 physical environmental characteristics potentially related to physical activity that were eligible for inclusion. Among preschool children, a positive association was reported between availability of backyard space and outdoor toys/equipment in the home and overall physical activity. The availability of physical activity programs and equipment within schools, and neighbourhood features such as pedestrian and cyclist safety structure were positively associated with physical activity in children and adolescents. Negative street characteristics, for example, lack of sidewalks and streetlights, were negatively associated with physical activity in adults. Inconsistent associations were reported for the majority of reviewed determinants in adults. Conclusion: This umbrella SLR provided a comprehensive overview of the physical environment determinants of physical activity across the life course and has highlighted, particularly amongst youth, a number of key determinants that may be associated with overall physical activity. Given the limited evidence drawn mostly from cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies are needed to further explore these associations. Registration: PROSPERO CRD42015010616.

140 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
17 Aug 2017-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: It is found probable evidence that receiving encouragement from significant others and having a companion for PA were associated with higherPA in children and adolescents, and that parental marital status and experiencing parental modeling were not associated with PA in children.
Abstract: Low levels of physical activity (PA) are reported to contribute to the occurrence of non-communicable diseases over the life course. Although psychological factors have been identified as an important category concerning PA behavior, knowledge on psychological determinants of PA is still inconclusive. Therefore, the aim of this umbrella systematic literature review (SLR) was to summarize and synthesize the scientific evidence on psychological determinants of PA behavior across the life course. A systematic online search was conducted on MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus databases. The search was limited to studies published in English from January 2004 to April 2016. SLRs and meta-analyses (MAs) of observational studies investigating the association of psychological variables and PA were considered eligible. Extracted data were evaluated based on importance of determinants, strength of evidence, and methodological quality. The full protocol is available from PROSPERO (Record ID: CRD42015010616). Twenty reviews (14 SLRs and 6 MAs), mostly of moderate methodological quality, were found eligible. Convincing evidence was found for self-efficacy (positive association with PA) in children and adolescents, and stress (negative association with PA) regardless of age. Most of the evidence revealing an association between psychological determinants and PA is probable and limited, mainly due to differences in the definition of PA and of psychological determinants across reviews. Thus, scholars are urged to reach a consensus on clear definitions of relevant psychological determinants of PA, subsuming cultural biases and allowing the possibility to obtain clear interpretations and generalizability of findings. Finally, most psychological determinants should be considered within a larger framework of other multi-level determinants that may interact or mediate some of the effects.

121 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results support a role of selenium and polymorphisms in selenoenzymes in prostate cancer etiology, which warrants confirmation in future studies.
Abstract: Background: Evidence for an association between selenium status and prostate cancer risk is still inconclusive. Anticarcinogenic effects of selenium are supposedly mediated through cellular protective and redox properties of selenoenzymes in vivo . We evaluated the association between serum selenium status and prostate cancer risk in a population with relative low selenium concentrations considering effect modification by genetic variants in selenoprotein genes. Materials and Methods: A case-control study of 248 incident prostate cancer cases and 492 matched controls was nested within the EPIC-Heidelberg cohort. Baseline blood samples were analyzed for serum selenium and selenoprotein P concentrations and glutathione peroxidase activity. Genotyping was carried out for SEP15 (rs5859, rs540049), SEPP1 (rs3877899, rs7579), GPX1 (rs1050450), and GPX4 (rs713041). Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: The OR for prostate cancer was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.79-1.01) per 10 μg/L increase of serum selenium concentration. This association was modified by rs1050450 (C>T) in GPX1 ( P interaction = 0.03), with carriers of one or two T alleles having a significantly reduced OR of 0.87 (95% CI, 0.76-0.99). Furthermore, there was an association between rs7579 genotype in SEPP1 and prostate cancer risk (OR, 1.72; 95% CI, 0.99-2.98). Conclusions: Our results support a role of selenium and polymorphisms in selenoenzymes in prostate cancer etiology, which warrants confirmation in future studies. Impact: These findings might help to explain biological effects of selenium in prostate cancer development in order to overcome inconsistencies arising from former studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(11); 2958–68. ©2010 AACR.

118 citations


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TL;DR: This research examines the interaction between demand and socioeconomic attributes through Mixed Logit models and the state of art in the field of automatic transport systems in the CityMobil project.
Abstract: 2 1 The innovative transport systems and the CityMobil project 10 1.1 The research questions 10 2 The state of art in the field of automatic transport systems 12 2.1 Case studies and demand studies for innovative transport systems 12 3 The design and implementation of surveys 14 3.1 Definition of experimental design 14 3.2 Questionnaire design and delivery 16 3.3 First analyses on the collected sample 18 4 Calibration of Logit Multionomial demand models 21 4.1 Methodology 21 4.2 Calibration of the “full” model. 22 4.3 Calibration of the “final” model 24 4.4 The demand analysis through the final Multinomial Logit model 25 5 The analysis of interaction between the demand and socioeconomic attributes 31 5.1 Methodology 31 5.2 Application of Mixed Logit models to the demand 31 5.3 Analysis of the interactions between demand and socioeconomic attributes through Mixed Logit models 32 5.4 Mixed Logit model and interaction between age and the demand for the CTS 38 5.5 Demand analysis with Mixed Logit model 39 6 Final analyses and conclusions 45 6.1 Comparison between the results of the analyses 45 6.2 Conclusions 48 6.3 Answers to the research questions and future developments 52

4,784 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The crucial factor that needs to be emphasised with regard to the health effects of selenium is the inextricable U-shaped link with status; whereas additional seenium intake may benefit people with low status, those with adequate-to-high status might be affected adversely and should not take selenum supplements.

2,297 citations

01 Apr 2012
TL;DR: International experts in cancer prevention analyse global research on diet nutrition physical activity cancer and make public health policy recommendations, the fractions of cancer attributable to potentially modifiable factors are analyzed.
Abstract: physical activity and cancer fact sheet national cancer on this page what is physical activity what is known about the relationship between physical activity and cancer risk how might physical activity be, diet and cancer report american institute for cancer the american institute for cancer research aicr is the cancer charity that fosters research on diet and cancer prevention and educates the public about the results, download resources and toolkits world cancer research downloads for scientists from the wcrf aicr third expert report diet nutrition physical activity and cancer a global perspective, nutritional science university of washington school of public health school of public health nutritional science detailed course offerings time schedule are available for spring quarter 2019, 2019 aicr research conference american institute for about aicr we fund cutting edge research and give people practical tools and information to help them prevent and survive cancer more about aicr, agence fruits et l gumes frais aprifel the global fruit and veg newsletter is a monthly newsletter distributing to 29 countries involved in the promotion of the consumption of fruit and vegetable worldwide, world cancer research fund international we are experts in cancer prevention we analyse global research on diet nutrition physical activity cancer and make public health policy recommendations, the fractions of cancer attributable sciencedirect com a proportion of cancers at many body sites are attributable to potentially modifiable factors no global summaries of the preventable cancer burden have been, who controlling the global obesity epidemic more information obesity and overweight fact sheet who global strategy on diet physical activity and health who global database on body mass index, espen guidelines on nutrition in cancer patients gl nutrition in cancer patients outline o methods o1 basic information o2 methods o3 post publication impact a background a1 catabolic alterations in, un news global perspective human stories un news produces daily news content in arabic chinese english french kiswahili portuguese russian and spanish and weekly programmes in hindi urdu and bangla, recommended community strategies and measurements to table continued summary of recommended community strategies and measurements to prevent obesity in the united states strategies to encourage physical, food as medicine preventing treating the most dreaded food as medicine preventing treating the most dreaded diseases with diet, video resources bc cancer these videos help patients learn about their cancer and its treatment, prostate cancer nutrition and dietary supplements pdq nutrition methods and dietary supplements have been studied for prostate cancer prevention or treatment read about the history of research laboratory, who europe food safety food safety ingestion and handling of contaminated food causes significant illness and death worldwide across the who european region foodborne diseases, creating healthy food and eating environments policy and food and eating environments likely contribute to the increasing epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases over and above individual factors such as knowledge skills, health risks obesity prevention source harvard t h obesity and reproduction obesity can influence various aspects of reproduction from sexual activity to conception among women the association between, top nutrition schools undergraduate degree programs ncr want to know the top nutrition schools and best undergraduate degree programs here we review analyze rank rate them figure out which is best for you , overeating caloric restriction and breast cancer risk by this study analyzes the association of excessive energy intake and caloric restriction with breast cancer bc risk taking into account the individual, calcium what s best for your bones and health the possible increased risk of ovarian cancer high levels of galactose a sugar released by the digestion of lactose in milk have been studied as being, cancer protocol nutrition supplements cancer protocol nutrition supplements herbs enzymes note do not email me unless you would like a personalized protocol free with a suggested donation of 250

2,202 citations

01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait, revealing patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits.
Abstract: Most common human traits and diseases have a polygenic pattern of inheritance: DNA sequence variants at many genetic loci influence the phenotype. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified more than 600 variants associated with human traits, but these typically explain small fractions of phenotypic variation, raising questions about the use of further studies. Here, using 183,727 individuals, we show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait. The large number of loci reveals patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits. First, the 180 loci are not random, but instead are enriched for genes that are connected in biological pathways (P = 0.016) and that underlie skeletal growth defects (P < 0.001). Second, the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant: in 13 of 21 loci containing a known skeletal growth gene, that gene was closest to the associated variant. Third, at least 19 loci have multiple independently associated variants, suggesting that allelic heterogeneity is a frequent feature of polygenic traits, that comprehensive explorations of already-discovered loci should discover additional variants and that an appreciable fraction of associated loci may have been identified. Fourth, associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes, being over-represented among variants that alter amino-acid structure of proteins and expression levels of nearby genes. Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation). Although additional approaches are needed to dissect the genetic architecture of polygenic human traits fully, our findings indicate that GWA studies can identify large numbers of loci that implicate biologically relevant genes and pathways.

1,751 citations

01 Dec 2003
TL;DR: In this article, mental health issues often co-occur with other problems such as substance abuse, and they can take an enormous toll on individuals and impact a college or university in many ways.
Abstract: Mental health issues often co-occur with other problems such as substance abuse, and they can take an enormous toll on individuals and impact a college or university in many ways. There are staff and departments both onand off-campus who are concerned about the well-being of students and the impact of mental health issues, so partnerships around mental health promotion and suicide prevention make good sense.

983 citations