Children and Education

Today’s families face a troubling future: Research suggests that the current generation of children may be the first Americans ever to live shorter, sicker lives than their parents. Childhood obesity is on the rise, but many children never get the physical activity necessary to avoid it. Many families must raise their children in neighborhoods where healthy food is scarce, and opportunities for exercise virtually nonexistent.

Addressing these problems will require a diverse set of strategies cutting across disciplinary lines. And Burness Communications has been active in a wide range issues affecting children and their families. Our work touches on education, childhood obesity, healthy lifestyles, health promotion, and disease prevention.

Whether we are raising awareness about the social factors that affect health, record childhood obesity rates or successful strategies for encouraging physical activity among children, Burness’ advocacy has helped our clients challenge conventional wisdom and advance opportunity for children.

In recent years, we have:

  • Led the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s communications efforts in support of its multi-pronged, $500-million-dollar effort to reverse the national childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.
  • Worked with Nemours Health and Prevention Services to highlight the need for physical activity in early childhood settings to fight America’s obesity epidemic.
  • Communicated the negative impacts of “teaching to the test” in civic education with the Carnegie-Knight Task Force at Harvard.
  • Helped tell the stories of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s work with high-achieving, low-income students.

Live from the Federal Reserve: Healthy Communities Conference

by Paul Selker on Tue, 07/13/2010 - 11:03am

Today at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., a unique event is in progress: leaders from the health, finance and community development sectors are coming together to discuss how their collaboration could help build healthier communities.

Hosted by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (a Burness client), it's an event that starts from a premise that we've been working with nonprofits to communicate for years: that where we live, learn work and play can have a tremendous effect on our health, and that if we want to make Americans healthier, we've got to look beyond health care to the social factors that affect health - from education, to transportation, to community design and beyond.

We'll be following the event during the day via the live streaming video and Twitter coverage at #fedhealth.   I hope you'll join us there!

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National Assembly on School-Based Health Care

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All children and adolescents are healthy and achieving at their fullest potential.
Our mission is to improve the health status of children and youth by advancing and advocating for school-based health care.

www.nasbhc.org/site/c.jsJPKWPFJrH/b.2554077/k.BEE7/Home.htm

American Educational Research Association

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The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Our efforts focus on improving both the health of everyone in America and their health care—how it's delivered, how it's paid for, and how well it does for patients and their families. Our goal is clear: To help Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need.

www.rwjf.org/

Northwestern University - National Children's Study

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The Feinberg School has received a seven-year, $32 million contract from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to be the Chicago study center of the National Children's Study, the largest study of child and human health ever conducted in the United States.

National Opinion Research Center (NORC)

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NORC, known since its founding in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, has headquarters on the University of Chicago's campus, and offices in Chicago's downtown Loop, Washington, DC, Bethesda, Maryland, and Berkeley, California, as well as a field staff that operates nationwide. NORC's clients include government agencies, educational institutions, foundations, other nonprofit organizations, and private corporations. Although NORC's national studies are its most well-known, our projects range from local to regional and international.

Policies to Help Teens in Trouble

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Policies to Help Teens in Trouble

Research shows that young people who use drugs or alcohol are much more likely to get into trouble with the law. The U.S. juvenile justice system currently holds more than two million teens – as many as four out of five of them have drug or alcohol problems.

Yet alcohol and substance abuse problems among America's youth frequently go undetected. Many young people end up back on the street, caught in a vicious cycle of drugs, alcohol, and crime that they don't know how to escape.

What do they need? More treatment. Better treatment. More than treatment.

Halting Childhood Obesity in Arkansas

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Halting Childhood Obesity in Arkansas

If today's childhood obesity epidemic continues unabated, we will be faced with a daunting prospect: raising the first generation of American youth with a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Indeed, one-third of American children ages two to 19 are currently either obese or at risk of becoming obese. This marks a dramatic spike in the obesity rates among children of all ages nationwide since the 1960s. The related health risks are alarming. Obese children are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes -- an affliction previously associated primarily with adults.