Background: Growing availability of research about addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has recently been embraced by the mainstream media and public. Social media, especially Twitter, provides a unique forum and platform for the public to access and share information about this topic. Objective: This study aims to better understand how…

Environmental health is a segment of public health, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) environmental health, "addresses all the physical, chemical and biological factors external to a person and all the related factors impacting behaviors. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can…

In this article, I offer a retrospective case study about my early, short-term work within the U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and then my later, longer-term work within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I endeavored for two decades largely to help our nation's schools improve health and associated…

Background: Place-based efforts offer promise in reducing childhood obesity. Yet, lack of public demand and support may hinder implementation. Aims: This study aimed to assess whether the emphasis on place-based solutions, community-wide strategies, and multisector engagement in the Healthy Schools Healthy Communities (HSHC) initiative would shift…

Healthy 2B Me aims to educate and empower underserved children ages seven to 11 years old to improve their health and well-being through a supportive, educational and entertaining public health-themed summer day camp. Qualitative data collected through camper exit slips, final posters/presentations, and parent surveys were analyzed to identify…

SHAPE America -- Society of Health and Physical Educators has targeted youth physical activity (PA) as 1 of its 4 goals within the 50 Million Strong[TM] campaign. Only 27.1% of youth met the target of all students (preK-12) participating in at least 60 min of PA that increases their heart rate enough to breathe hard at least some of the time for…

My talk will describe two public health problems facing women and children that were the focus of the work my colleagues and I did over my years as a health behavior change researcher. I start by addressing why a focus on women and children is important from a public health perspective and then provide two mini case studies: (1) identifying needs…

Globally, paediatric obesity causes widespread concern, and the role of ethnicity is an important focus. Investigating how culture can mediate health-related behaviour through ideas about bodies, food and physical activity, while addressing a notion that the Pakistani community in Norway is particularly conservative and slow to change, this…

Background: Historically speech and language therapy services for children have been framed within a rehabilitative framework with explicit assumptions made about providing therapy to individuals. While this is clearly important in many cases, we argue that this model needs revisiting for a number of reasons. First, our understanding of the nature…

Background: School physical education (PE) not only offers and promotes health-related physical activity (PA), but also encompasses the promotion and development of health-related well-being such as health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Furthermore, assessing PA and HRQOL have become major issues in pediatric public health and also serve as a…

This article explores mothers' narratives of changing home smoking behaviours after participating in an intervention (Reducing Families' Exposure to Smoking in the Home [REFRESH]) aimed at reducing families' exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) in homes in Scotland. An analysis of qualitative findings illuminates quantitative changes in levels of…

Obesity increases the risk of many health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure, lipid disorders, stroke and more. While obesity affects more than one third of all adult Americans, people with disabilities are more likely to be overweight or obese and often have fewer tools for controlling weight at…

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) annually publishes an immunization schedule for persons aged 0 through 18 years that summarizes recommendations for currently licensed vaccines for children aged 18 years and younger and includes recommendations in effect as of December 15, 2009. The changes to the previous schedule are…

Newborn screening is a test done on every child born in the US shortly after birth to detect diseases where, if not diagnosed and treated in the newborn period, the child will suffer significant trauma, disability or die. A few drops of blood from each baby's heel is put on a card and sent to the state's public health lab for testing. Most states…

The past century has seen vast improvements in our children's health. The infectious diseases that once killed huge numbers of children have largely been conquered. Infant mortality has also fallen markedly, although the United States lags behind other industrialized nations in this and other measures of children's health. Accidents and injuries…