Public health consultation : Holtsville residential area, Holtsville, Farmingville, Holbrook and Lake Ronkonkoma communities : Suffolk County, New York /

"December 13, 2005; CERCLIS No. NYXCRA270000."

Better health for rural America; plans of action for farm communities.

Mode of access: Internet.

The role of transport and mobility in the health of older people

The world's population is ageing. Older people are healthier and more active than previous generations. Living in a hypermobile world, people want to stay connected to dispersed communities as they age. Staying connected to communities and social networks enables older people to contribute and connect with society and is associated with positive mental and physical health, facilitating independence and physical activity while reducing social isolation. Changes in physiology and cognition associated with later life mean longer journeys may have to be curtailed. A shift in focus is needed to fully explore older people, transport and health; a need to be multidisciplinary in approach and to embrace social sciences and arts and humanities. A need to embrace different types of mobilities is needed for a full understanding of ageing, transport and health, moving from literal or corporeal through virtual and potential to imaginative mobility, taking into account aspirations and emotions. Mobility in later life is more than a means of getting to destinations and includes more affective or emotive associations. Cycling and walking are facilitated not just by improving safety but through social and cultural norms. Car driving can be continued safely in later life if people make appropriate and informed decisions about when and how to stop driving; stringent testing of driver ability and skill has as yet had little effect on safety. Bus use facilitates physical activity and keeps people connected but there are concerns for the future viability of buses. The future of transport may be more community led and involve more sharing of transport modes.

Health beliefs and health care options of disparate black communities in the United States

According to the 1999 U.S. Census, there were approximately thirty-three million African Americans and approximately 1.8 million non-Hispanic black immigrants in the United States. The 1997 U.S. Census estimated that there were as many as 554,000 foreign-born Haitians and 505,000 foreign-born Jamaicans living in the United States, mainly residing in Florida and New York. The U.S. Census claims that blacks are one of the largest emerging ethnic groups in America constituting at least twelve percent of this country's population. Because of this increase, their specific health beliefs and health care options are increasingly nationally significant. ^ In the present intra-black and inter-ethnic study, two hundred seventy African Americans, Haitian immigrants, and Jamaican immigrants residing in South Florida were quantitatively and qualitatively surveyed in order to investigate their health beliefs and health care options. According to the reviewed literature, the three black ethnic groups researched in this study have not been compared or contrasted before in relation to these beliefs and health care choices. ^ As was discovered by the present research, differing health beliefs and health care options were the cultural products of the ethnic differences of the researched communities. It was expected that differing health beliefs among the researched black groups might indicate disparate patterns of health care utilization of either western or non-western models. Additionally, it was projected that by investigating the health beliefs and the health care options of these emerging black ethnic groups, western health care providers in the United States could become better versed in medically servicing growing ethnically-disparate black populations. The study yielded results about the researched groups that supported major findings in the reviewed literature. The data were reported and examined, and theoretical generalizations from the data were discussed. The most important of these findings was that, within a race, health beliefs and health care options were determined by specific ethno-cultural variables dependent on national origins. ^

Communities of practice as professional and organizational development strategy in local public health organizations in Québec, Canada : an evaluation model

Communities of practice (CoPs) are among the professional development strategies most widely used in such fields as management and education. Though the approach has elicited keen interest, knowledge pertaining to its conceptual underpinnings is still limited, thus hindering proper assessment of CoPs' effects and the processes generating the latter. To address this shortcoming, this paper presents a conceptual model that was developed to evaluate an initiative based on a CoP strategy: Health Promotion Laboratories are a professional development intervention that was implemented in local public health organizations in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). The model is based on latest theories on work-group effectiveness and organizational learning and can be usefully adopted by evaluators who are increasingly called upon to illuminate decision-making about CoPs. Ultimately, validation of this conceptual model will help advance knowledge and practice pertaining to CoPs as well as professional and organizational development strategies in public health.

Healthy Food, Healthy Iowans, Healthy Communities Public Health Tools to Advance Healthy, Sustainable Food Systems, June 2014

The purposes of the Healthy Food, Healthy Iowans, Healthy communities Series are to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the food system to public health issues (Part 1) and to provide tools to local public health agencies for assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating food system initiatives (Part 2).

Communities of practice as professional and organizational development strategy in local public health organizations in Québec, Canada : an evaluation model

Communities of practice (CoPs) are among the professional development strategies most widely used in such fields as management and education. Though the approach has elicited keen interest, knowledge pertaining to its conceptual underpinnings is still limited, thus hindering proper assessment of CoPs' effects and the processes generating the latter. To address this shortcoming, this paper presents a conceptual model that was developed to evaluate an initiative based on a CoP strategy: Health Promotion Laboratories are a professional development intervention that was implemented in local public health organizations in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). The model is based on latest theories on work-group effectiveness and organizational learning and can be usefully adopted by evaluators who are increasingly called upon to illuminate decision-making about CoPs. Ultimately, validation of this conceptual model will help advance knowledge and practice pertaining to CoPs as well as professional and organizational development strategies in public health.

[the Teaching Of Social Sciences In Health: Between Practice And Theory].

The models of teaching social sciences and clinical practice are insufficient for the needs of practical-reflective teaching of social sciences applied to health. The scope of this article is to reflect on the challenges and perspectives of social science education for health professionals. In the 1950s the important movement bringing together social sciences and the field of health began, however weak credentials still prevail. This is due to the low professional status of social scientists in health and the ill-defined position of the social sciences professionals in the health field. It is also due to the scant importance attributed by students to the social sciences, the small number of professionals and the colonization of the social sciences by the biomedical culture in the health field. Thus, the professionals of social sciences applied to health are also faced with the need to build an identity, even after six decades of their presence in the field of health. This is because their ambivalent status has established them as a partial, incomplete and virtual presence, requiring a complex survival strategy in the nebulous area between social sciences and health.