National Prevention Council's annual report details prevention initiatives
July 14, 2014
The National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council released its 2014 annual report on July 1. The report describes the goals of the Council’s National Prevention Strategy and outlines developments and progress made toward those goals.
Dr. Mayer-Davis
“The National Prevention Strategy is all about making healthy choices the easy choices,” said Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, chair and professor of nutrition at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “It’s about working together to improve health for people in all walks of life, at every age.”
Mayer-Davis was appointed by President Obama in 2011 to serve on the National Prevention Council’s advisory group on prevention, health promotion, and integrative and public health. She remains on the council and was actively involved in this year’s report.
The report highlights efforts overseen by several federal agencies to create a tobacco-free generation, improve access to healthy foods and implement prevention and wellness programs, as well as dozens of other initiatives.
“This is a national effort to establish and coordinate a number of different programs across several different federal agencies,” Mayer-Davis said. “In fact, in a lot of ways this is a national effort to implement efforts that we’ve been spearheading here at the Gillings School for years.”
Mayer-Davis pointed to the Gillings School’s established record of research and service aimed at preventing obesity, food disparities, tobacco use, access to clean water, and health and wellness.
Some recent examples of the School’s research efforts include:
- A $20M grant to study issues related to tobacco prevention communication, awarded to Kurt Ribisl, PhD, professor of health behavior;
- “Heart Healthy Lenoir,” a multidisciplinary cardiovascular health and wellness program pioneered by Alice Ammerman, DrPH, professor of nutrition;
- A cheap, effective clean water test developed by Mark Sobsey, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of environmental sciences and engineering; and
- A pilot program with a national partner to assess the health and wellness of childcare workers, initiated by Dianne Ward, EdD, professor of nutrition, and Laura Linnan, ScD, professor of health behavior.
The full National Prevention Council report can be found here.
Note: During the week of July 14, the Council encourages conversations in social media about the value of the report and the work of the Council. Use hashtags #NPSAction and #Gillings to join in.
