Built Environment Approaches for Improving Community Health
May 9, 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. Eastern
The built environment - our neighborhoods and communities where we live,
learn, work and play - has an impact on physical activity levels, access
to healthy food, transportation behaviors and, ultimately, health
outcomes. This APHA webinar will feature two counties that have taken
different approaches to changing the built environment around them in
order to improve the health of their communities. Public health and
development officials from Kane County, Ill., will describe their model
for collaborative public policy planning and implementation and discuss
the implementation of their 2040 Master Plan, which fully integrates
public health into land use and transportation decisions.
Representatives from Manatee County Health Department in Florida will
discuss the development of a Complete Streets policy to reduce
pedestrian and bicycling injuries and increase opportunities for biking
and walking.
Register: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/y0qwd7ybo61n
Eloisa Raynault | American Public Health Association | 800 I Street NW,
Washington DC 20001 | Transportation, Health and Equity Program Manager
| o: 202-777-2487 | http://apha.org/transportation
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
Hello health folks!
I'm throwing together a last minute happy hour for the "Healthy Communities" crowd to meet, greet, mix and mingle. I know there is a lot going on, but it would be delightful to bring all of our energies together in one place. We will meet in the open bar area, then perhaps transition outside if the weather is nice.
Location: Sweetwater Tavern and Grill<http://www.sweetwatertavernandgrille.com/> - 225 N Michigan Ave (this restaurant is downstairs from APA's office building)
Time: Monday, April 15, 6-8pm
I know there are more of us out there so: Please share with interested colleagues!!
See you soon!
Anna Ricklin, MHS
Manager | Planning and Community Health Research Center<http://www.planning.org/nationalcenters/health>
American Planning Association
1030 15th St, NW Suite 750W
Washington, DC 20005
202-349-1009
Anna Ricklin, MHS
Manager | Planning and Community Health Research Center<http://www.planning.org/nationalcenters/health>
American Planning Association
1030 15th St, NW Suite 750W
Washington, DC 20005
202-349-1009
Apologies for cross posting. This comes via Andy Rohne. I think it will
benefit the CTPP, TMIP and H+T community since there will data users from
different industries and we can learn from each other. The good part is
that it is not another email list but rather a Q&A site where answers are
voted up or down and people have an interest in giving credible answers to
maintain and increase their reputation. I use stack overflow extensively
and have found it to be extremely useful.
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/51674/open-data?referrer=pQZ2DWiJ…
Krishnan
--
Krishnan Viswanathan
5628 Burnside Circle
Tallahassee FL 32312
This may be of interest to you and your networks.
Birth defects linked to highway smog: http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/birth-defects-linked-to-highway-smo…
STANFORD (US) — Women who breathe traffic pollution early in their pregnancy have a higher risk of having a baby with serious birth defects of the brain and spine, a new study reports.
The finding comes from a study that examined air quality and birth-defect data for women living in California’s San Joaquin Valley, one of the smoggiest regions of the country.
“We found an association between specific traffic-related air pollutants and neural tube defects, which are malformations of the brain and spine,” says lead author Amy Padula, a postdoctoral scholar in pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Straight from the Source
Read the original study <http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/03/27/aje.kws367.abstract?…>
DOI: 10.1093/aje/kws367
“Birth defects affect one in every 33 babies, and about two-thirds of these defects are due to unknown causes,” says Gary Shaw, professor of neonatal and developmental medicine. “When these babies are born, they bring into a family’s life an amazing number of questions, many of which we can’t answer.”
For the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology <http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/03/27/aje.kws367.abstract?…> , the scientists studied 806 women who had a pregnancy affected by a birth defect between 1997 and 2006, and 849 women who had healthy babies during the same period.
The study examined two types of neural tube defects: spina bifida, a spinal-column malformation, and anencephaly, an underdeveloped or absent brain); cleft lip, with or without cleft palate; cleft palate only; and gastroschisis, in which the infant is born with some of his or her intestines outside the body.
All women studied resided in an area of California known for poor air quality—the San Joaquin Valley—during the first eight weeks of their pregnancies, a window of time when many birth defects develop.
The researchers asked each woman for her home address during this period and scored subjects’ exposure to air pollutants using data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of federally mandated air-quality monitoring.
The pollutants assessed included carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and ozone, as well as local traffic density.
After controlling for factors such as race/ethnicity, maternal education, and multivitamin use, women who breathed the highest levels of carbon monoxide were nearly twice as likely to have a baby with spina bifida or anencephaly as those with the lowest carbon monoxide exposure.
Nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide exposures were also linked to increased risk for these defects; women with the highest nitrogen oxide exposure had nearly three times the risk of having a pregnancy affected by anencephaly than those with the lowest exposure, for example. Further studies are needed to examine the combined effects of multiple pollutants.
The quality of earlier research linking air pollution and birth defects has been hampered by the difficulty of getting reliable data on women’s exposure to pollutants.
The new study is the first to assess women’s pollutant exposures in early pregnancy, when birth defects are developing, rather than at birth.
Scientists say further studies are needed to confirm the results of the new research and to examine other pollutants, as well as other types of birth defects.
“If these associations are confirmed, this work offers an avenue for a potential intervention for reducing birth defects,” Padula says.
“In addition, for our colleagues who are bench scientists, this work gives them an opportunity to think about what pollution exposures might mean mechanistically,” Shaw says. “It could give them a better understanding of the details of human development.”
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and at Sonoma Technology Inc. in Sonoma, California, were involved in the work, which was funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source: Stanford University <http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/march/pollution.html>
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the
Department of Health and Human Services announced the opening of a
docket to obtain information from the public on walking as an effective
way to be sufficiently active for health. The information obtained will
be used to frame an anticipated Surgeon General's call to action on this
issue.
The notice can be found at www.regulations.gov. The 30 day public
comment period begins today and ends Tuesday, April 30th. The notice
requests information on way to increase walking and community
walkability.
Please consider providing input to the docket and sharing this
announcement with stakeholders who may also be interested.
To provide input go to www.regulations.gov
In the search box type the Docket No. CDC-2013-0003
It's National Public Health Week!
National Public Health Week is here and we hope you're excited! There
are many ways to get involved throughout the week and beyond, so be sure
to check www.nphw.org
<http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=N1oMrCdnaA12WuboenRmOw> often for new
events and follow @NPHW on twitter
<http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=oT6WSS20WcOGiIWvNgMfCQ> , and 'like'
the APHA Facebook page.
<http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=1qsLMry-GJAD6c1g-iFeKA>
Surgeon General Regina Benjamin kicks off National Public Health Week
(video)
Watch as Surgeon General Regina Benjamin kicks off National Public
Health Week <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx6cA1OGBUE> and explains
how public health is a return on investment. The video announces the
beginning of a national effort to engage more people in the simple, yet
extraordinarily beneficial form of exercise: walking.
Tell us what public health means to you
National Public Health Week is the perfect time for you to tell us what
public health means to you. Participate in our NPHW Message Board and
complete the following phrases: "Public Health is ...", and "A world
without public health would be ..." Simply download the messages, fill
in your thoughts, take a picture and send it to us at www.nphw.org
<http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=UAvakT9CKVZYVNpJucdg1w> and we'll post
it to the APHA Facebook page. It's a simple and fun way to get involved
in NPHW!
Join the NPHW Twitter chat, Wednesday, April 3, at 2 p.m. EDT
As part of National Public Health Week, we're hosting a third Twitter
chat and we hope you can join us! Scheduled for Wednesday, April 3, at 2
p.m. EDT, engage with fellow public health advocates on important public
health topics that relate to public health's return on investment. We'll
explore and discuss ways in which evidence-based disease prevention and
health promotion initiatives can save lives and money. Twitter makes it
easy for you to get involved in the conversation. Just include #NPHWchat
<http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=QLycfxTk3L5ivMEep0DuOg> in your tweet
or follow @NPHW <http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=y5ozeVOTAcKZP4ru6n7vuA>
. RSVP <http://action.apha.org/site/R?i=Zs_3NnIqza8DiI9W3E4xrQ> and
invite your friends!
Tell us how you're celebrating National Public Health Week
Hosting an event? Tell us about it by submitting it to the NPHW events
calendar <http://www.nphw.org/events/submit-an-event> . And submit your
NPHW activities to The Nation's Health
<http://www.nphw.org/events/submit-an-event> . APHA's newspaper will
publish submissions from across the country. Send in your National
Public Health Week news and events by April 19!