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The Built Environment Assessment
Training (BEAT) Institute is a
week-long institute designed to train investigators and practitioners tangible skills that can be used to measure many of the aspects of the built environment that are believed to have an effect on health.
What is the built environment? The built environment is defined as the buildings, roads, utilities, homes, food stores, restaurants, fixtures, parks and all other man-made entities that form the physical characteristics of a community. The built environment includes nutrition and physical activity environments, streetscapes, transportation environments, and everything in between.
Why the BEAT Institute?
The Institute of Medicine and other key organizations have identified environmental and policy changes as the most promising strategies for controlling obesity and improving diet and physical activity.
There are now a variety of measures that can be used by researchers and practitioners to plan and evaluate changes to the built environment. The BEAT Institute is designed to train participants to use these measures.
Goals of the Institute
- Prepare investigators and practitioners to use both observational and self-report measures of nutrition and activity environments and related behavioral assessments through lectures, fieldwork, hands-on skills, group work and individual consultation.
- Increase the number of professionals qualified to conduct built environment assessments for nutrition and physical activity.
BEAT Institute Funding
The United States Department of Agriculture, 2007-55215-17924 and 2010-85215-20659. With collaboration from the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Behavior Research and Harvard Prevention Research Center.
