Collaborative evaluation and management of students’ health-related physical fitness: applications of cluster analysis and the classification tree
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Jou-An Chen
Abstract
Health-related physical fitness has decreased with age; this is od immense concern to adolescents. School-based health intervention programs can be classified as either population-wide or high-risk approach. Although the population-wide and risk-based approaches adopt different healthcare angles, they all need to focus resources on risk evaluation. In this paper, we describe an exploratory application of cluster analysis and the tree model to collaborative evaluation of students’ health- related physical fitness from a high school sample in Taiwan (n=742). Cluster analysis show that physical fitness can be divided into relatively good, moderate and poor subgroups. There are significant differences in biochemical measurements among these three groups. For the tree model, we used 2004 school-year students as an experimental group and 2005 school-year students as a validation group. The results indicate that if sit-and-reach is shorter than 33 cm, BMI is >25.46 kg/m2, and 1600 m run/walk is >534 s, the predicted probability for the number of metabolic risk factors ≥2 is 100% and the population is 41, both results are the highest. From the risk-based healthcare viewpoint, the cluster analysis can sort out students’ physical fitness data in a short time and then narrow down the scope to recognize the subgroups. A classification tree model specifically shows the discrimination paths between the measurements of physical fitness for metabolic risk and would be helpful for self-management or proper healthcare education targeting different groups. Applying both methods to specific adolescents’ health issues could provide different angles in planning health promotion projects.
©2012 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Masthead
- Editorial
- Dean Ornish should receive the Nobel prize in medicine
- Review Articles
- Adolescent suicide in New York City: plenty of room for new research
- Consequences of prenatal substance use
- The need for evidence-based, non-drug medicine
- Teaching medical professionals and trainees about adolescent suicide prevention: five key problems
- Original Articles
- Sexual violence and associated factors among women in HIV discordant and concordant relationships in Uganda
- Educational impact of peer-intervention on the knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS in adolescents in Panama
- Tobacco brand preference among Mexican adolescents
- Spirituality and substance use in a sample of Russian adolescents
- Collaborative evaluation and management of students’ health-related physical fitness: applications of cluster analysis and the classification tree
- Body weight satisfaction among New Zealand adolescents: findings from a national survey
- Prevalence of common mental disorders among Dutch medical students and related use and need of mental health care: a cross-sectional study
- Reaching Jewish ultra-orthodox adolescents: results from a targeted smoking prevention trial
- Case Report
- Rare cases of disorders of sex development (DSD) in adolescents with female phenotype
