April 11, 2019 12:00 pm Central
Register
Guest Panelists:
Laurie Whitsel, Ph.D.
Nico Pronk, Ph.D.
Russell R. Pate, Ph.D.
The US Department of Health and Human Services released its second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans in November 2018, highlighting the importance of moving more and sitting less. Physical inactivity continues to be a significant health and business issue with implications for mental health, mortality and morbidity associated with chronic conditions, health care costs, and workforce productivity.
This webinar will focus on the actions employers can take to support the Physical Activity Guidelines with a special focus on the influence of employers to support consistent physical activity assessment, incorporation of physical activity into health care, leadership role modeling, worksite culture and policy.
Laurie Whitsel, Ph.D., is currently the Vice President of Policy Research and Translation for the American Heart Association (AHA), helping to translate science into policy at a national level in the areas of cardiovascular disease and stroke prevention and health promotion. The association’s policy research department provides policy development and the foundation for the American Heart Association’s advocacy work at the global, national, state, and local levels. Guided by volunteer leadership, the AHA policy research team has worked with leading experts around the world to develop policy statements that position the organization on issues that will impact cardiovascular health and reduce mortality, guide the association’s advocacy work, and inform policy makers, practitioners, health care professionals, researchers, the media, and the public. Whitsel serves on the Board of Directors for the Health Enhancement Research Organization and the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity. She has served on expert advisory groups with RAND, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her Ph.D. is from Syracuse University and she is a Fellow and member of the AHA’s National Scientific Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health.
Nico Pronk, Ph.D., is President of the HealthPartners Institute and Chief Science Officer at HealthPartners, Inc. and holds a faculty appointment as Adjunct Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Pronk’s work is focused on connecting evidence of effectiveness with practical applications of programs and practices, policies and systems that measurably improve population health and well-being. His work applies to the workplace, the care delivery setting, and the community and involves development of new models to improve health and well-being at the research, practice and policy levels. Dr. Pronk was confirmed by the White House to serve as co-chair of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for the year 2030 (aka “Healthy People 2030”). He is a current member of the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and is the founding and past president of the International Association for Worksite Health Promotion. Dr. Pronk received his doctorate degree in exercise physiology at Texas A&M University and completed his post-doctoral studies in behavioral medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Russell R. Pate, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Exercise Science in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Pate is an exercise physiologist with interests in physical activity and physical fitness in children and the health implications of physical activity. He has published more than 350 scholarly papers and has authored or edited eight books. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Heart Association, and several private foundations and corporations. He heads a research team that is currently supported by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health and from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He served on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (2003-04), the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee (2007-08), and an Institute of Medicine panel that developed guidelines on prevention of childhood obesity. He currently serves as Chair of the National Physical Activity Plan Alliance, and was a member of the 2017-2018 U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee.
This webinar is available to members only.