Session: Built Environment Institute VI: Discussions on Direct and Indirect Influences of a School’s Built Environment on Health and Physical Activity

4195.1: Tuesday, November 9, 2004: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM

Roundtable

Built Environment Institute VI: Discussions on Direct and Indirect Influences of a School’s Built Environment on Health and Physical Activity

This session, which is jointly sponsored by the School Health Services and Education section, will present case studies and review-type reports to highlight the multidisciplinary focus required to understand how a school campus, and the one or more surrounding communities served, may affect occupant physical activity and health. Physical activity, as well as nutrition, health services, education, and extracurricular activities, are vital components of school health. Authors will discuss issues including education of doctors and school nurses about school built environments; findings of a recent Institute of Medicine report on physical activity, nutrition, and overweight and obesity in schools; improving indoor air and environmental quality to reduce asthma episodes, which affects a child’s ability to learn and participate in physical activity outside or inside, including design and construction of new school facilities; and, how the location of a school relative to populations served, and the attributes of adjacent communities, influences whether a child can walk or bike versus riding a bus or car.

Learning Objectives: participants will: 1.) acquire a greater understanding of how a school’s built environment -- classroom, facilities, location relative to community served -- is one of the important interrelated factors in determining the health of children ages 4-18; 2.) recognize direct and indirect influences of a school’s built environment on physical activity and other health indicators like prevalence of asthmatic symptoms, nutrition, and overweight and obesity among students and staff.

Organizer(s):

Neal L. Rosenblatt, MS
Derek Shendell, MPH, DEnv
Shobha Srinivasan, PHD

Moderator(s):

Derek Shendell, MPH, DEnv
Shobha Srinivasan, PHD

Table 1

Institute of Medicine report on prevention of obesity in U.S. children and youth *
Ross Brownson, PhD, Russell R. Pate, PhD, Shirley R. Watkins, MEd, Vivica Kraak, MS, RD

Table 2

Building healthy, high performance schools: Lessons learned from state and local initiatives
Tobie Bernstein, JD

Table 3

Asthma prevention through air quality improvement in the microenvironment of a school: A NYC pilot project
Rebecca Kalin, MA, MPH

Table 4

Promoting healthy and active communities: Medical students and the built environment *
Jan K Carney, MD MPH, Lynn Zanardi Blevins, MD MPH, Kelly Huynh

Table 5

Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting *
Kevin M. Nelson, AICP

See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.

Organized by:

Environment

Endorsed by:

Community Health Planning and Policy Development; Health Administration; Public Health Education and Health Promotion; Public Health Student Caucus; School Health Education and Services

CE Credits:

CME, Nursing

The 132nd Annual Meeting (November 6-10, 2004) of APHA