Active Living Research News
ALR Conference
Registration Opens in October
The ALR2015 conference will be held February 22 – 25, 2015 in San Diego, Calif. The conference theme, The Science of Policy Implementation, will be brought to life by keynote speaker Gil Peñalosa, Executive Director of 8-80 Cities. Gil is passionate about cities for all people and advises decision makers and communities on how to create vibrant cities and healthy communities for everyone regardless of social, economic, or ethnic background. Check the ALR website for updated conference details.
ALR Resources
ALR Infographic Translated Into Spanish
Our popular Changing Communities Gets People Moving infographic has been translated into Spanish. Mejorar Comunidades Mueve a La Gente highlights studies which evaluated changes in physical activity after the implementation of built environment and programmatic modifications in different cities. The infographic can be downloaded for free for print or electronic dissemination.
Grantee Highlights
Providing Practitioners with School Travel Information
Noreen McDonald developed a set of infographics to show the effectiveness of Safe Route to School projects and how they can boost walking and biking. The infographics also provide reference information on the rates of walking and biking by regions across the United States.
Eight Ways Parks Improve Your Health
The Trust for Public Land has transformed the Eight Ways That Parks Improve Your Health brochure into a digital e-book, complete with links to more articles, reports and videos. The brochure and accompanying animated video are great tools for communicating the critical importance parks play in our wellness.
School Playground Design Impacts Youth Physical Activity Levels
Lois Brink and colleagues evaluated how specific design elements of a school playground renovation impacted children’s physical activity. Results showed that children prefer to use certain types of playground zones, such as swing areas, hard-surface play areas, and play equipment areas (ie jungle gyms and slides). Kids are also more likely to achieve moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in zones with swings, play equipment, basketball and tetherball areas. Gender differences were also reported.
Announcements and Other Resources
Call for Applications for the 2015 RWJF Culture of Health Prize
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize is awarded annually to honor outstanding community efforts and partnerships that are helping people live healthier lives. Up to 10 winning communities will each receive a $25,000 cash prize and have their accomplishments celebrated and shared broadly with the goal of raising awareness and inspiring locally-driven change across the country. Applications are due September 17, 2014.
Lessons Learns from Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities
Active Living By Design has released Growing a Movement: Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Final Report. Gain insights on what is achievable through collaboration among community-based organizations, residents, decision makers and other partners by reading Growing a Movement. The report provides an overview of the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities national program supported 49 partnerships to increase children’s access to healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity through changes in policies, systems and environments in communities at greatest risk for childhood obesity based on race, ethnicity, income and geographic location. Growing a Movement includes common themes, key findings and brief vignettes, along with implications for the field, valuable for local leaders, partners and funders alike.
Promoting Health through Local School Wellness Policies
Bridging the Gap and the CDC have developed a series of research briefs highlighting opportunities to support wellness policies through evidence-based strategies. These briefs provide an assessment of policies across school districts nationwide related to seven wellness policy components, including quality physical education (PE) and recess in elementary schools. They also highlight areas of opportunity for state agencies, school districts, and schools to strengthen wellness policy components.
Shared Use Clearinghouse
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership has launched a shared use clearinghouse of resources focused on shared use agreements of school and public recreation facilities. The clearinghouse is a comprehensive, easy-to-use, searchable online database designed to improve access to important resources to aid communities and school districts in developing successful shared use agreements.
Implementing SRTS in Rural Areas
Two new publications from ChangeLab Solutions are aimed at helping school districts, parents, and active transportation advocates develop policies for walking and biking to school in rural areas. On the Move breaks down approaches and tools of particular interest to rural school districts. Get Out & Get Moving explores the legal implications of remote drop-off programs, and includes a cost-benefit worksheet for assessing risk.
Conferences
International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
The 14th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) will take place in Edinburgh, Scotland from June 3 – 6, 2015. The theme of the meeting will be Advancing Behavior Science Change. Symposia submission will open on September 1, 2014 and abstract submission will open on October 31, 2014.
Society of Behavioral Medicine
The Society of Behavioral Medicine’s 36th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions are being held April 22-25, 2015 in San Antonio, TX. The meeting’s theme is Advancing the National Prevention Strategy through Behavioral Medicine Innovation. Abstracts for presentation are due September 11th.
Childhood Obesity Conference
Save the date for the 8th biennial Childhood Obesity Conference, being held June 29 – July 2, 2015 in San Diego, CA. The conference theme is Collective Impact: Developing a Shared Vision to Achieve Greater Success.
Moving Active Transportation to Higher Ground
The Transportation Research Board and the American College of Sports Medicine are co-sponsoring Moving Active Transportation to Higher Ground: Opportunities for Accelerating the Assessment of Health Impacts. The conference, to be held April 13-14, 2015 in Washington, DC, aims to bring together professionals in the fields of transportation, urban planning, public health, health care, and health economics to explore the state of the art and state of the practice on quantifying the public health outcomes of active transportation. Abstracts for presentation are due October 1st.
Funding Opportunity
The NIH has released two new funding opportunity announcements to encourage innovative research to improve our understanding of how to increase and maintain health-enhancing physical activity. These announcements are intended to generate research with an emphasis on multi-level interventions that have the potential to be scalable, implementable, and sustained in real-world settings.
Research Project Grant – R01: For studies that are ready to implement, test, and evaluate scalable interventions. Due October 31, 2014.
Exploratory/Development Phased Innovation – R21/R33: For investigators that need sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations, or to pilot or refine interventions previously used in different settings or populations. Due October 4, 2014.
