Promoting and strengthening public health through undergraduate education.

There are widely divergent views as to what constitutes "public health" and "public health research". But regardless of these views, readers of this journal would likely agree that public health matters; we assert that so does the educational programming that prepares its workforce. Our voiced perspectives as authors are influenced by our respective training, occupations, and academic locales, and we believe that undergraduate public and population health education (UGPPHE) across many disciplines is crucial to strengthening public health in Canada. Existing literature and discourse related to UGPPHE in Canada tends to be concentrated around its ancillary positioning within clinical health disciplines such as medicine, nursing, and dentistry, rather than on the evolution of undergraduate degree programs. While UGPPHE programming has the important function of preparing undergraduates to enter into practice as public health professionals, it has added virtue in its capacity to improve public health literacy and produce a more robust body of informed and engaged citizens. The intent of this commentary is to draw increased attention towards the other disciplines less well known for bringing awareness to UGPPHE in Canada and to commence what will hopefully be a cascade of dialogue from stakeholders across the nation.

Fitness Equipment in Public Parks: Frequency of Use and Community Perceptions in a Small Urban Centre.

BACKGROUND: Providing freely accessible exercise facilities may increase physical activity at a population level. An increasingly popular strategy is outdoor fitness equipment in urban parks. Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of this intervention in smaller cities. This study examined fitness equipment use, perceived effectiveness, and ways to increase use in a city of 100,000 people in 2015. METHODS: Two parks with fitness equipment and 4 without were directly observed. Interviews with 139 adults in active parks or living nearby were also conducted. RESULTS: Only 2.7% of adult park users used the fitness equipment over 100 hours of observation across 3 seasons. In contrast, 22.3% of adults interviewed reported monthly or more use of the equipment, highlighting the limitations of self-report methods. Adults interviewed perceived the equipment as potentially beneficial and suggested strategies to increase public use, including increased advertising, the introduction of programming to teach and encourage use, improved equipment quality, and improved maintenance of the equipment and surrounding area. CONCLUSIONS: In a low density city, park fitness equipment may not be an effective public health practice without additional efforts to market, introduce programming, and maintain these sites.