In this webinar, Dr. Charles Basch, Richard March Hoe Professor of Health and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, presented the causal connections between health factors and the motivation and ability to learn. This Q&A addressed the questions participants had for Dr. Basch following the webinar. The webinar recording and…

These pamphlets present facts, background information and guides on the immunization of children against preventable diseases. Individual pamphlets are provided for mass media specialists, health personnel in the field, health policy makers and program administrators, as well as university personnel. Contents include a specification of the role of…

The characteristics of needs assessment, in terms of social and health programs, are discussed, as well as misunderstandings, criticisms, and suggested changes in needs assessment activities. (MH)

Health promotion includes those strategies that reinforce the maintenance of healthy lifestyle behaviors and discourage the use of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. Health promotion strategies are gaining momentum in the United States. Three of the six "America 2000" education goals have health-related implications, specifically the goals…

For more than 35 years, research has increasingly linked our nation's diet to heart disease and cancer--the nation's top two killer diseases. Yet there is no well-organized, vigorous effort to improve American eating habits. A National Nutrition Coalition should be established to educate the public. (BJV)

The responsibility for community health should be shared and coordinated among schools, parents, and health agencies. Children's knowledge and skills should be developed so that they too can promote personal good health. Issues and strategies are discussed. (BJV)

During the past three decades, there has been an increase in knowledge about early childhood development. Early experiences can function as either risk factors or protective factors for a child's future health and development. This has led to concern about how current health systems contribute to the quality of the earliest experiences of life.…

The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities (CHCFC) has developed the School Readiness Critical Pathways (SRCPs) as an evidence-based conceptual model that links related outcomes and strategies. This helps to organize an array of broad and diffuse evidence regarding the strategies that produce school readiness outcomes for…

The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau has launched a five-year initiative that will support state efforts to build comprehensive early childhood service systems. This initiative--the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative (SECCS)--provides two year planning grants followed by three year implementation grants to the 50 state…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…