Loma Linda University School of Public Health is hosting the first Healthy People in Healthy Communities (HPHC), a three-day conference focusing on lifestyle medicine and the built environment, in March. The theme this year will be healthy kids.
Award-winning and bestselling authors Richard Louv and Jeff Speck have been confirmed as the two keynote speakers for the event.
The conference, presented by Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, will be held March 4-5, 2014, on the Loma Linda University campus. An introductory day at ESRI in Redlands will be held on March 3.
Jeff Speck, author of “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time,” will speak on Tuesday, March 4.
Richard Louv, author of the award-winning books "Last Child in the Woods" and "Nature Principle," has started an international movement that seeks to restore the gap between children and nature.
Both Speck and Louv will be offering book signings during the event.
The conference theme this year spotlights children’s health in the community, bringing together a multi-disciplinary group of academics, policy leaders, educators, GIS experts, and children’s advocates. This facilitates interdisciplinary efforts by people of diverse backgrounds and interests to reframe the conversations around health and the built environment.
Looking to the interrelated web of factors that shape development from the pre-natal period and throughout the life course, the conference program highlights a number of key topics at the intersection of health and environment, including epigenetics, nutrition, air quality, community design, the media, and family situation.
“Healthy People in Healthy Communities will be an opportunity for community partners and leaders to identify how we can work together to fill the gaps in the lifestyles of our children,” says Donna Gurule, MPH, chair of the HPHC scientific committee and the environmental health and geoinformatics sciences department at LLU School of Public Health.
A special half-day event at ESRI headquarters on March 3 is geared toward geoinformatic specialists and those interested in learning how geoinformatics is changing the face of health care and public health.
HPHC is the consolidation of two established School of Public Health events: Healthy People—the premier conference on lifestyle medicine—and Healthy Communities by Design—an innovative forum on the built environment and geographic information systems.
Registration for the event is now open. All registration includes continuing education credit. To register, please visit www.HealthyPeopleConference.org. For more information on the event, call Krystal Gheen at LLU School of Public Health, (909) 558-4595.