New Articles from Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine

SBM's two journals, Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, Research (TBM), continuously publish online articles, many of which become available before issues are printed. Two recently published Annals and TBM articles are listed below.

SBM members who have paid their 2025 membership dues are able to access the full text of all Annals and TBM online articles via the SBM website by following the steps below.

1. Go to the Members Only section of the SBM website.
2. Log in with your username and password.
3. Click on the Journals link.
4. Click on the title of the journal which you would like to electronically access.

To check your membership status, or if you are having trouble accessing the journals online, please contact the SBM national office at info@sbm.org or (414) 918-3156.

Translational Behavioral Medicine

mHealth app-based ecological momentary assessment to ascertain tobacco retail outlet exposure, tobacco marketing, tobacco use, and susceptibility among rural youth

Sunny Jung Kim, Joseph Boyle, Jeremy Barsell, Kendall Fugate-Laus, Elizabeth K Do, Rashelle B Hayes, Bernard F Fuemmeler

Lay Summary

Rural youth have higher tobacco use rates than their urban peers. While prior research has linked tobacco retail outlets (TROs) and marketing to tobacco use, less is known about how to capture these exposures in real-world settings or how they influence tobacco daily use and susceptibility among rural youth. This study used a smartphone app to track daily real-world exposure to TROs and tobacco marketing. We found that exposure to TROs in activity spaces outside the home and school was linked to recent tobacco use but negatively associated with recall of tobacco ads. The study shows that mobile apps can effectively monitor these exposures and suggests that proximity to TROs may play a role in how often youth use tobacco.

Assessing barriers to community engagement on cannabis policy: baseline survey of behavioral and public health professionals in California

Ryan Whitacre, Alisa Padon, Bethany Simard, Lynn Silver

Lay Summary

Cannabis policy is a complex and rapidly evolving topic with significant implications for behavioral and public health. Behavioral and public health professionals are well-positioned to support community engagement on cannabis policy issues, benefiting the health of communities. We surveyed behavioral and public health professionals in California to understand the barriers they have faced to community engagement in cannabis policy. Our findings show that behavioral and public health professionals are highly interested in engaging on cannabis policy issues. They report the highest confidence in restricting products attractive to children and youth. However, they face restrictions on lobbying and limited funding availability, which pose major barriers to this work. They need dedicated resources and support for community engagement. Our findings may be relevant for understanding the potential for community engagement among behavioral and public health professionals in other states and countries where cannabis has been legalized or legalization is being considered.

Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and incident chronic disease

Kyle J Bourassa, PhD, Livia Anderson, BS, John C Brown, MS, Paul A Dennis, PhD, Melanie E Garrett, MS, Allison E Ashley-Koch, PhD, Jean C Beckham, PhD, Nathan A Kimbrel, PhD

Lay Summary

This study examined whether 4 types of traumatic stress—combat exposure, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and PTSD diagnoses—were associated with poor health. This included risk factors for poor health, such as high body mass, heart rate, smoking, and hypertension, as well as the onset of major chronic diseases, which were assessed using electronic health records. Using data from 3696 post-9/11 US veterans, we found that PTSD was associated with higher body mass, more alcohol use, higher rates of smoking, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Over follow-up, veterans with more combat exposure, trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, or a diagnosis of PTSD developed more chronic disease. PTSD had the strongest associations with disease risk and showed consistent associations with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and pulmonary disease, and these associations remained when accounting for non-PTSD psychiatric diagnoses, like depression. Compared to veterans with PTSD, veterans with PTSD in the past had less risk of developing chronic diseases. These findings suggest that treating PTSD and the sequelae of trauma might have the potential to reduce risk for chronic disease, particularly cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and pulmonary disease.

Changes in physical activity 1 year after breast cancer diagnosis and associations with patient-reported outcomes: results from the AMBER cohort

Jeff Vallance, PhD, Christine Friedenreich, PhD, Ruixuan Zhang, MSc, Qinggang Wang, PhD, Charles Matthews, PhD, Lin Yang, PhD, Margaret McNeely, PhD, Chad Wagoner, PhD, Nicole Culos-Reed, PhD, Gordon Bell, PhD, Jessica McNeil, PhD, Leanne Dickau, MSc, Kerry Courneya, PhD

Lay Summary

We recently completed the Alberta Moving Beyond Breast Cancer (AMBER) study; the first and only prospective cohort study designed to examine the role of device-based and self-reported physical activity, sedentary behavior, and health-related fitness in breast cancer survivorship from the time of diagnosis and into survivorship. In this paper, we examined associations between device-measured physical activity (ie, average daily steps, daily light intensity hours, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity intensity hours) with changes in quality of life and fatigue in the first year after diagnosis. Few studies have monitored physical activity behaviors in the first year after a breast cancer diagnosis. In the first year after diagnosis, we found that participants with the largest increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity had significantly greater improvements in quality of life and fatigue compared with those participants that decreased in their physical activity behaviors. These findings add to the literature highlighting the importance of being physically active after a breast cancer diagnosis.