Other Public Health Commons^™

Hands On Health Symposium: Student Research And Creative Endeavors, Jessica Lynn Rogers

Kinesiology and Public Health

This paper explains the organization and planning process for the student research section of the first annual Hands on Health Symposium that was held on the Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo campus. The event was to promote and make public awareness of healthy living. I did a write up of the sources I used, and what I did, so that the next student in charge of putting on the student section, will have a guideline.

Does Unemployment Decrease Cancer Mortality?, Benjamin Torres Galick

Economics Honors Projects

Recent research indicates that healthier lifestyles during recessions decrease the most common U.S. mortalities, but not cancer. However, they combine specific cancer mortalities with different progressions into one, possibly obscuring cancer’s link to unemployment. This paper estimates a fixed-effects regression model on unemployment and the nine most prevalent cancers between 1988 and 2002 using state-level panel data. Five cancers and total cancer are procyclical, and suggest that unemployment affects both incidence and gestation for some cancers. Consistent with the medical literature, this paper contradicts previous economic research and suggests that behavioral factors significantly impact cancer mortality.

Girls' Perception Of Physical Environmental Factors And Transportation: Reliability And Association With Physical Activity And Active Transport To School, Kelly R. Evenson, Amanda Birnbaum, Ariane L. Bedimo-Rung, James Sallis, Carolyn C. Voorhees, Kimberly Ring, John P. Elder

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Background

Preliminary evidence suggests that the physical environment and transportation are associated with youth physical activity levels. Only a few studies have examined the association of physical environmental factors on walking and bicycling to school. Therefore, the purpose of this study was (1) to examine the test-retest reliability of a survey designed for youth to assess perceptions of physical environmental factors (e.g. safety, aesthetics, facilities near the home) and transportation, and (2) to describe the associations of these perceptions with both physical activity and active transport to school.

Methods

Test and retest surveys, administered a median of 12 days later, …

Constructing Whiteness In Health Disparities Research, Jessie Daniels, Amy J. Schulz

Publications and Research

There is a long tradition within the United States of constructing whiteness (the racial subject) against racialized others (the racial object) and in the process displacing the focus of critical analysis. Here we turn our lens to the often invisible--or at least underinterrogated--concept of whiteness within the context of the literature on racial disparities in health. Specifically, we examine how whiteness is constructed in the active literature documenting and interpreting racial disparities in health and the implications of these constructions for efforts to eradicate inequalities in health. We draw on the concepts of racial formation and "racial projects" that emphasize …