A One-day Workshop – building collaboration

Health and the Built Environment

            bridging professional outlooks and practices 

Small group interactive exercises and open discussions display the value of building collaborations between environmental design, land planning, health care and public health professionals. Through the course of the day each professional’s distinctive way of thinking about and working for the public’s good is blended into balanced, comprehensive design and health care strategies. Working in interdisciplinary groups, participants bring together the best aspects of successful and productive aging, smart growth, active living, and new urbanism in ways that redefine what are currently considered best practices fostering healthy people and healthy communities.  

Workshop leader is Bob Scarfo, Ph.D., ASLA, and Associate Professor at Washington State University Spokane’s Interdisciplinary Design Institute. He may be contacted at scarfo@wsu.edu or 509.358.7913

Four Luncheon Workshops – maximum enrollment 50 participants per workshop.

One-day Workshop -- Summary

Successful and productive aging, the obesity epidemic, and the built environment are areas of attention that employ similar language used by diverse professions. The professions of gerontology, geriatrics, health sciences and health care and architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and urban and rural planning not only employ many similar words and phrases but also seek similar outcomes that benefit the public health, safety and welfare. Explored in open discussion, the common words and phrases have the potential of blending the efforts of each of the professions.

Through a series of small group, interactive exercises, workshop participants use language familiar to two seemingly divergent professional groups, healthcare/public health and land planning/design professionals, to:

• Highlight each profession’s distinctive way of thinking about and working for the public good.
• Share diverse professional definitions of similar words and phrases applied to the public’s health, safety, and welfare.
• Merge the professional definitions into comprehensive community design and health-care delivery strategies.
• Interpret the more inclusive strategies into practical applications to be applied at the neighborhood level.
• Build collaborative ties with variety of new professional contacts.

Participants, in small profession-specific groups, define ten words and phrases common to the professions e.g. available, accessible, environment. A sharing of definitions in open session leads to a blended, complementary understanding of actions and outcomes aimed at enhancing how health care and design and planning professionals may work together. With an established level of mutual understanding, small interdisciplinary groups then develop strategies for multigenerational living environments that support successful and productive aging, contribute to obesity prevention, and foster energy and resource conservation. The workshop concludes with the groups, in open session, producing a list of recommendations to be applied to the revitalization of healthier urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods.

Through a workshop-related website at Washington State University Spokane’s Interdisciplinary Design Institute, www.spokane.wsu.edu/scarfo  participants will be able to remain current with subsequent workshop outcomes, extend their collaboration building with diverse professionals from around the country, and access resources related to successful and productive aging, obesity trends and research, and energy conservation trends related to urban, suburban, and rural neighborhood design.

Workshop Rationale

Currently, the growing number of Americans 65 and older who are independent and wish to remain active and engaged in life make up 13% or our citizens. In the next 20 years they will grow to comprise 24% of the country, and number 77 million. The nation’s current health report card is not good. As noted in the 1999–2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 66% of the country is overweight or obese. Direct medical costs related to the obesity epidemic are now at $117 billion a year. People’s weakened health is compounded by their potential to contract type 2 diabetes. Energy availability, reflected in rising construction, transportation, and heating costs is the tip of the petroleum spike iceberg (Silverthorn’s DVD, End of Suburbia). While not a panacea, people’s single most beneficial daily habit supportive of aging well, obesity prevention, and personal and municipal energy conservation and cost reduction is exercise in the form of walking: 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes at a time, 7 days a week. The kinds of build environments that support walking as part of people’s daily routines are found in the smart growth, new urbanisim, and active living precepts.

Work aimed at understanding and supporting healthy, productive living is being done all along a spectrum from academic and scientific gerontological and geriatric research to applied projects under the titles of active living, smart growth, multigenerational living, and more. A sharing of that work would benefit their efforts, enhance the ways and means by which they contribute to the health and welfare of the public, and contribute to stronger physical and social communities.

Workshop – schedule, tasks, and outcomes

8:30 – 9:00        Getting settled: seated at tables of 5-6; seated with professional peers.
9:00 – 9:20        Around the Room: brief introductions and professional responsibilities.
9:20 – 9:50        PowerPoint presentation describes the influences of 3 converging trends’ on the ways people will seek to age well, stay trim, and reduce energy and resource use.
9:50 – 10:00      Break
10:00 – 10:30    Using a worksheet, participants work in profession-specific groups of 6-7 people at each table to define a series of 10 words and phrases and provide practical examples.
10:30 – 11:30    Presentation of agreed-upon definitions and examples by a representative at each table.
11:30 – 12:00    Open discussion on realized differences in perception of terms and execution of practices.
12:00 – 1:10      Lunch

Open discussion on value of building collaboration realized thus far and what form do they               see those collaborations taking?

1:10 – 1:15        Participants reorganized into interdisciplinary groups of 6-7 people at each table.    1:15 – 3:00        Build on the morning’s definitions and examples to identify policy and practice guidelines that could be applied to redevelop or retrofit neighborhoods.
3:00 – 3:15        Break
3:15 – 4:30        Each table presents its group’s design guidelines and benefits to the community. 4:30 – 4:45        Closing discussion

                        Fill out evaluation forms.

A Few References:

Our Aging Population

n       Bass, S., Caro, F., and Chen, Y., (eds.): 1993: Achieving a Productive Aging Society. Newport, CT: Auburn House.

n       Encyclopedia of Aging, 1995: Productive Aging. New York: Springer, 763-764.

n       Morgan, J. 1986: Unpaid Productive Activity Over the Life Course. In Committee on an Aging Society et al., Productive Roles in an Older Society. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 250-280.

n       Morrow-Howell, N., Hinterlong, J., and Sherrand, M. (eds). 2001: Productive Aging: concepts and Challenges. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.

n       Rowe, J. and Kahn, R. 1998: Successful Aging. New York: Dell.

Obesity Epidemic

n       BBC News, 2001: Wednesday, 30 May, 2001   Obesity epidemic warning

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1358887.stm

n       McCann, B. and Ewing, R. 2003: Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl. Smart Growth America http://www.smartgrowthamerica.com/default.html

n       NIH, 2004: Releases Research Strategy to Fight Obesity Epidemic (August 24, 2004)

      http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/aug2004/niddk-24.htm

n       Torgan, C. 2002: NIH Word on Health, Childhood Obesity on the Rise
http://www.nih.gov/news/WordonHealth/jun2002/childhoodobesity.htm

n       Strum, R. and Cohen, D. 2004: “Suburban Sprawl and Physical and Mental Health.” Public Health 118, 488-496.

The Petroleum Spike

n       Grant, L. The End of Fossil Fuels Part 1. How Long the Twilight?

      http://www.npg.org/forum_series/fall04forum.html

n       Campbell, C. 2004: Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group OIL AND GAS LIQUIDS 2004 Scenario. Updated by Colin J. Campbell, 2004-05-15  http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/Default.htm

n       Hawkin, P. 1993: Ecology of Commerce: a declaration of sustainability. New York: Harper Collins.

n       WA Gov Executive Order 04-06 http://www.governor.wa.gov/eo/eo_04-06.htm

n       Silverthorn, B. (Producer) 2004: End of Suburbia. DVD, 78 minutes.