The National Park Service's (NPS) Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance program is working with doctors, healthcare providers, and other local organizations as part of the Healthy Parks Healthy People (HPHP); Greater Washington Area Initiative (DC, VA, MD, and WV) to connect physicians with ParkRx. ParkRx (Park Prescriptions) are programs designed in collaboration among public land agencies, healthcare providers, and community partners to encourage people to utilize parks, trails, and open space for the purpose of improving individual and community health. Doctors use a prescription pad to actually prescribe park time outdoors in nature or in a park. Park prescriptions can improve their health-physical and mental-and create a generation of lifelong park stewards. Since 2013, ...
Are you concerned about speeding cars in your neighborhood? Residents in San Antonio can request traffic calming measures, like speed humps, speed enforcement, signage, pavement markings and medians using the Traffic Calming Handbook. Developed by the City of San Antonio Department of Public Works, the Traffic Calming Handbook aims to improve street features to reduce the negative effect of speeding and cut through traffic. The Handbook is also available in Spanish. Improving street features to improve safety is critical to promote walking, physical activity, and overall health and wellbeing. This Handbook outlines the process a resident must go through to request a traffic calming measure. It begins by filling out a 2-page form. The first page requires information about ...
Editor’s Note: This is the story of a graduate of the 2015 Èxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. Apply now. Angie Poggi-Burke
Hyattsville, Maryland Fueled by the efforts of her mother who worked hard to provide for her kids, Angie, this native Puerto Rican graduated high school early and struck out on her own, moving to Washington, D.C., after college and then working on federal health disparities projects. Her proactive nature has stoked her interest in non-communicable diseases, psychosocial issues, and even US Census medical expenditure data. Angie obtained a BS in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and an MPH in Biostatistics from the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus. "[Éxito!] is a great program! ...
On March 12 and 13, 2016, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is hosting What's Out There Houston Weekend free tours to discover the landscape architecture-led transformation going on in Houston. Expert-led tours of approximately 30 sites (see below) will look at Houston's unique collection of cultural landscapes, including historic parks and projects currently underway. Confirmed tours around the city include: Allen Center, Antioch Park, Bagby Park, Bayou Bend, Broadacres, Buffalo Bayou Park and the Sabine Promenade, Christ Church Cathedral, City Centre, Discovery Green, Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park, Glenwood Cemetery, Gragg Park, Hermann Park and McGovern Centennial Gardens & Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion, Hermann Square, Houston Arboretum and Nature ...
Not getting enough sleep at nights may be causing your junk food cravings, according to a study. After scanning 23 young adults after a normal night’s sleep and after a sleepless night researchers at UC Berkeley found “impaired activity in the sleep-deprived brain’s frontal lobe, which governs complex decision-making, but increased activity in deeper brain centers that respond to rewards. Moreover, the participants favored unhealthy snack and junk foods when they were sleep deprived.” “What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified,” said Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and ...
A new study hoped to learn more from the data about the health risks, such as smoking, on cancer diagnoses in the Latino community. More than 16,000 Latinos participated in the study, and 4% reported instances of some type of cancer. Cancer has surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death among Latinos, yet researchers still know little about how specific risk factors affect Latinos across ancestry groups. The researchers, part of the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, did not find a significant relationship between smoking and cancer prevalence among Latinos. However, it is the belief of the researchers that the lack of a connection can be due to the “cross-sectional nature” of the study. The authors believe that more research is needed to determine the risk ...
Improving health isn't limited to the doctor's office or to a lab. Quite the opposite, in fact. The zip code you grow up in is a better predictor of your health than your genetics. This is due to social and environmental factors that influence health behaviors. Take street trees, for example. A recent study, Neighborhood Greenspace and Health in a Large Urban Center, found that street trees have numerous economic and health benefits. Exposure to greenspaces can reduce sedentary time, promote physical activity, and reduce blood pressure, which is important for low-income and minority neighborhoods because they often lack aesthetically pleasing active spaces, yet are disproportionately burdened by increased rates of obesity and chronic disease. "We find that having 10 more ...
This is part of our Latina Mom and Baby Health: A Research Review »
Maternal obesity a factor
Studies have shown that maternal obesity and lower social class are both associated with a tendency to formula feed and a greater risk of obesity in children.4 In fact, parental obesity is considered a strong predictor of obesity in offspring, which can be due to both environmental and genetic components.5,6 Results from the Viva La Familia Study in 2009 outlined genetic and environmental risk factors linked to childhood obesity in 1,030 Latino children from Houston.7 Findings confirmed that maternal obesity was indeed an independent risk factor for childhood obesity within this population; Latina mothers ≥30 kg/m2 gave birth to children that were 1.8 times more likely to be ...
This is part of our Active Spaces & Latino Kids: A Research Review »
The goal to increase access to schoolyards after school
One of the goals for Healthy People 2020 is to increase the access to school physical activity facilities during non-school hours, with a current goal of having 31.7 percent of U.S. schools providing access by 2020.11 The previous target, from Healthy People 2010, was to have 50 percent of schools allowing access by 2010; however, data showed that no progress was being made so the goal was revised.31 In fact, fewer schools provided access to their physical activity facilities in 2006 (29%) than the baseline in 2000 (35%), although the difference was not statistically significant. Before 2010, the School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) sought ...
