We are pleased to announce an exciting new alliance between Active Living Research and GP RED to co-host and coordinate the Active Living Conference. Our organizations share the vision of creating a community-driven, sustainable event for sharing the latest research, policies, and practices that advance activity-friendly communities for everyone.
The Active Living Conference
The Active Living Conference began in 2004 and is a venue for both cutting-edge research and for making findings usable by non-scientists. The conference brings together a diverse audience and provides networking and engagement opportunities for active living researchers and practitioners from many fields. Presentations and discussions focus on the importance of creating healthier communities for all people. The 2021 Active Living Conference will take place April 6 – 9 and will be a virtual learning and engagement event that will bring together researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to advance knowledge and action on how to evaluate, create and sustain active living environments.
The 2021 Active Living Conference theme, Now More than Ever – Active Living for All, implores us to embrace active living as a focal mechanism for overcoming the adversities in our lives. The past year has highlighted new and more complicated challenges related to public health policies, compounding health inequities, racial and political division, structural racism, and pandemic fatigue among others. Active living and active design can play important roles in treating and preventing these stressors, yet active living generally has been absent from public dialogue, and evidence-based active design principles have been ignored. The theme for this year’s conference challenges us to discuss and ensure that the positive effects that an active lifestyle and active design can provide are for everyone. Topics that address this theme could include: how to provide active living opportunities for all people, with a specific emphasis on the disenfranchised and underserved, creating innovative mechanisms to promote active living during a pandemic, understanding how active living can facilitate community cohesion, creating active living interventions to address long-term effects of COVID-19, or providing evidence to build more disease-resilient communities.
The Call for Session Proposals will includes both a research and a practice/policy submission category to ensure that the program includes presentations and lessons learned from organizations and advocates that are implementing evidence-based active living policies and strategies in communities across the globe. The conference agenda is being developed by the Executive Program Committee and a draft outline will be posted soon.
GP RED
GP RED (RED) is the sponsoring fiscal agent for the conference. Founded in 2008, RED is a non-profit organization whose goal is to fully recognize and expand research, education, and resource development activities for community “quality of life” agencies. The work of RED supports and provides opportunities for health, recreation and land management agencies, along with the associations and universities that support them, to work collaboratively and proactively to identify and fill gaps in knowledge and practical resources.
Executive Program Committee
Co-Chairs
Gina Besenyi, MPH, PhD, Kansas State University
Nicholas Boér, PhD, University of Tennessee Chattanooga
Honorary Co-Chair
Greg Heath, DHSc, University of Tennessee Chattanooga
Past Co-Chairs
John Spengler, JD, PhD, Texas A&M University
Deborah Salvo, PhD, Washington University St. Louis
Chair Emeritus
Jim Sallis, PhD, Active Living Research
Community and Health Equity
Scarlett Lin Gomez, MPH, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Jennifer Roberts, DrPh, MPH, University of Maryland
Parks and Recreation
Courtney Schultz, PhD, Health & Technology Partners, Inc
Janet Bartnik, CPRP, Mountain Recreation Metropolitan District
Practice and Policy
Kevin Roth, PhD, National Recreation and Park Association
Laurie Whitsel, PhD, FAHA, American Heart Association
Public Health
Julian Reed, MPH, EdD, Furman University
Selina Stasi, DrPh, MPH, Texas A&M University
Gene Fitzhugh, PhD, The University of Tennessee Knoxville
Schools and After School
Jayne Greenberg, PhD, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Peter Stoepker, PhD, University of West Georgia
Transportation, Planning, and Land Use
Karin Valentine Goins, MPH, UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center
Michael Lopez, MUP, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Business, Industry, and Innovation
Chuck Flink, FASLA, Greenways, Inc
Lisa Moore, MA, PlayCore
Early Career Professionals
Deb Kellstedt, DrPh, MPH, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Jillian Papa, MPH, Action for Healthy Kids
Student Leaders
Tyler Prochnow, PhD Candidate, Baylor University
Natalicio Serrano, PhD Candidate, Washington University in St. Louis
GP RED Conference Coordinating and Support Team
Amanda Walker, MSRS, Research and Education Manager
Teresa Penbrooke, PhD, CPRE, Co-Founder and Director, Healthy Communities Research Group
Donna Kuethe, CPRP, Executive Director
Becky Dunlap, CPRP, Zoom Queen, Social Media, Whova Coordinator
Todd Humphrey, Zoom Assistant
Alaina Brandenburger, MA, Marketing Manager
John Rainey, MFA, Designer, Web Wrangler