Asthma imposes tremendous burden on children, families, and society. Successful management requires coordinated care among children, families, health providers, and schools. Building Bridges for Asthma Care Program, a school-centered program to coordinate care for successful asthma management, was developed, implemented, and evaluated. The program…

Background: The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHKA) required schools to make changes to meals provided to children. Rural school districts have limited resources, with increased obesity rates and local food insecurity. In this study we sought to understand the perceptions of rural food service directors and the barriers to implementing…

Background: Public health models have been used to address a number of school-based concerns, notably in the identification and treatment of students at-risk for academic or behavioral deficits. Significant benefits are associated with this model as, compared to a traditional approach, the focus is shifted from remediation to prevention, and from…

Background: Public health professionals must monitor the effectiveness of school policies and programs to prevent youth initiation, promote quitting, and eliminate secondhand smoke. This analysis of school tobacco policies was preliminary to release of a state tobacco prevention and control plan for 2010-2015. Methods: University health educators…

Walking today through Somerville, Massachusetts' Winter-Hill Community School during school hours differs markedly compared with just a few years ago. Gone are the greasy potato chips and chocolate-chip cookies from the a la carte offerings in the cafeteria. Missing are the late morning fundraisers when children would fill up on cupcakes and other…

Walking today through Somerville, Massachusetts's Winter Hill Community School during school hours differs markedly compared to just a few years ago. Gone are the greasy potato chips and chocolate-chip cookies from the a la carte offerings in the cafeteria. Missing are the late morning fundraisers when children would fill up on cupcakes and other…

Health promotion programs benefit from an accompanying process evaluation since it can provide more insight in the strengths and weaknesses of a program. A process evaluation was conducted to assess the reach, implementation, satisfaction and maintenance of a school-based program aimed at the prevention of excessive weight gain among Dutch…

Community participation in program decision-making and implementation is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders aspire to in participatory research. This ideal, however, can be difficult to achieve. We describe lessons learned about community participation from a quasi-experimental trial aimed at reducing the uptake of smoking among…

During the past three decades, there has been an increase in knowledge about early childhood development. Early experiences can function as either risk factors or protective factors for a child's future health and development. This has led to concern about how current health systems contribute to the quality of the earliest experiences of life.…

This report reviews work by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG), which evaluated the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), including whether children are being enrolled inappropriately in SCHIP rather than in Medicaid, and states' progress in reducing the number of uninsured children. This…

Guidelines to help schools and communities in New York implement or improve a Comprehensive School Health and Wellness (CSHW) program are outlined in this manual. Based on 8 components and 11 interrelated conceptual areas, the 811 Grid offers a framework for assessing current efforts and for planning strategies to improve school/community health.…

This article urges a reexamination of the concept of dissemination of health-related prevention programs. The article discusses factors that serve as sustaining conditions for dissemination of prevention programs including: (1) the nature of preventive intervention and parameters of effective community-based prevention praxis; (2) aspects of the…

This document comprises three papers related to the implementation of early childhood education, health care, and support programs. The first paper is a brief reflection on the nature of implementation, based on the contributions of Boudewijn Bekkers. The second is a proceedings chapter by Marian Hanrahan titled "Community Based Innovative…

Due to the efforts of mental health consumer and advocacy organizations, there now exists a legislated community-based mental health policy for the treatment of children and adolescents with serious emotional disorders and their families. But the implementation of this policy has not met the intended legislative standards. Accordingly, this…

Physical activity levels begin to decline in childhood and continue falling throughout adolescence, with girls being at greatest risk for inactivity. Schools are ideal settings for helping girls develop and maintain a physically active lifestyle. This paper describes the design and implementation of "Lifestyle Education for Activity Program", or…