For this academic year's final meeting in May, Dr. Derek G. Shendell of the Georgia State University Institute of Public Health, Janet Weissman of the DeKalb County Board of Health, and several Georgia State University MPH and MS students will give an overview/update of applied research projects concerning outdoor and indoor built environments, and urban outdoor air quality.

This talk and discussion will summarize the goals, designs and current progress of multiple studies being led by the Institute of Public Health (Prevention Sciences track) at Georgia State University, with internal and external collaborators, concerning indoor and outdoor physical/built environment factors and urban outdoor air quality. The projects being conducted include:

1) environmental health education to enhance awareness, knowledge and skills of school nurses, clinic assistants and teachers with process, impact and outcome measures including average daily attendance and reasons for absence, tardiness and leaving early at public K-12 schools in DeKalb and Fulton counties;

2) factors promoting or inhibiting mobility at DeKalb County senior wellness centers ;

3) examine among competitive recreational athletes -- with qualitative and quantitative measurements -- environmental, sociodemographic, nutritional, immunological, physical and/or cardiorespiratory characteristics during training, the race, and planned post-race recovery in conjunction with volunteer participants of a major endurance running/walking event in March 2007

The Healthy Places Research Group is an informal gathering of people interested in the intersection of health and the built environment. An effort of Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Group was formed in 2003 to establish a multidisciplinary dialogue about how places impact public health.