Public Health

Using an ecological framework, this paper examines the body mass index (BMI), physical activity and travel behaviour of household heads in a US new urbanist neighbourhood relative to household heads of comparable conventional suburban US neighbourhoods. Using a quasi-experimental design, a new urbanist neighbourhood and five conventional suburban neighbourhoods were matched on age of development, assessed property values and regional accessibility. Self-reported height, weight, physical activity and travel behaviours were obtained from the household heads in each neighbourhood type....

Policy interventions such as zoning ordinances, school facility siting guidelines, capital improvement programs, and park master plans hold particular promise for promoting physical activity, especially at the local level. Despite increasing attention to the relationship between built environment characteristics and physical activity, there is a paucity of research on the extent to which local policies can promote or hinder physical activity. Furthermore, the impact of local policies on physical activity should depend on how effectively the policies are implemented. Based on the...

Professionals from many different disciplines are finding innovative ways to work together to increase physical activity to help create healthier communities. One process that can provide a focal point for promoting physical activity by park and recreation professionals, land use and transportation planners, public health practitioners, and other stakeholders is the development and implementation of pedestrian plans. A pedestrian plan is a public document that lays out a community’s vision for future pedestrian activity, identifies the actions required to realize that vision, ties...

To validate the Most Probable Number technique (MPN) according to the method EPA1682/06 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in compost and chicken manure, these matrices were inoculated with Salmonella Typhimurium ATCC#14028, defining a double blinded study. In order to include all parameters established for a validation process, 504 samples were used: 252 compost samples and 252 chicken manure samples. The detection limit was 0.8 cells/g for compost and 2 cells/g for chicken manure. In addition, the critical level was 5 UFC/g and the correlation between the...