了解中心教师：Andrew Springer博士

Published: June 10, 2022

Dr. Andrew Springer is an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Austin and a member of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living. He has over 20 years of experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating child and adolescent health promotion programs. His research focuses on child and adolescent health promotion with a specific interest in social-ecological influences on health behavior in young people and participatory community health planning and evaluation methods.

过去的研究beplay苹果手机能用吗项目包括对CATCH Middle School，，，，Marathon Kids，以及更强大的奥斯汀倡议。他还制定并测试了低成本策略，以在德克萨斯州奥斯汀和科罗拉多州普韦布洛的休息时间和结构化活动中促进小学儿童的体育活动。

他最近的工作包括社区联盟领导的社区健康学习计划，该计划使年轻人参与评估需求并确定基于地点的解决方案。这项工作导致他目前担任Del Valle Healthy Adolecent Project评估的主要研究者，这是一个社区合作伙伴主导的项目，增强了对青少年健康促进的支持生态系统。

施普林格博士通过担任主席的主席，拥护一个积极的社区健康实践社区儿童健康合作以及其他社区卫生委员会，包括奥斯汀/特拉维斯社区的健康改善计划，儿童最佳健康和德克萨斯州社区健康评估。他以前的公共卫生参与包括通过Amigos de Las Americas在拉丁美洲的农村健康促进项目，Save Children-El Salvador和危地马拉的联合国发展计划。

Dr. Springer took the time to answer a few questions we had for him about his experiences in public health and his interests:

1. How did your interest in public health begin?

I began my public health journey as a high school volunteer with a dental hygiene promotion project in rural Cajamarca, Peru, with the nonprofit organization, Amigos de las Americas in 1984. Through that experience, I developed a love for Latin America, community health, and the power of collective action. Years later, while working with the same organization, I led an evaluation of a latrine project in Guanajuato, Mexico. Thanks to that experience, I developed a greater interest in program evaluation and quickly realized I needed more formal training in public health. I began my graduate school studies at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston in the mid-1990s in the “Family and International Health” module, with excellent guidance provided by my esteemed mentor, Dr. George Kerr.

2.您的研究采取了什么道路？beplay苹果手机能用吗

I began my career with interest in diarrheal disease prevention among children, which was the focus of my MPH thesis. Working in rural Mexico with theSecretariade Salud, we found that many communities did not have full latrine coverage, except for one with almost full coverage. We learned that this outlier was due to the community's collective action and a ‘community agreement,’ similar to a policy created by the community council. Building from that experience, I developed a strong interest in community-engaged research, practice, and how settings and environments (e.g., the information, social, policy, and built environments) can shape health and health behaviors.

我目前的研究主要集中在beplay苹果手机能用吗儿童和青少年健康促进上，包括预防肥胖，促进体育锻炼和预防年轻人的风险行为。我通过我的干预研究和基于社区的健康促进实践工作对社区参与研究和社区健康促进实践方法产生了浓厚的兴趣。beplay苹果手机能用吗

3.在你看来,什么是最重要的public health problems in your field of research?

2021Michael & Susan Dell Center Lectureship in Child Healthkeynote speaker,托尼博士Iton是insightful statement “your zip code is more important than your genetic code” applies to both public health in general and to child and adolescent health promotion, where young people are confronted with unequal opportunities for their healthy development and quality of life. In my area of community health promotion, we need to move beyond individual-level theories to community-level theories to understand and guide our efforts to address societal barriers and opportunities for the healthy development of young people. We also need to grow our toolbox of both research methods and practice-based community health improvement methods to develop a science and practice not just of individual-level change but also environmental-level change.

4. Do you have a favorite research project that you’ve worked on, or one that stands out?

I’m very interested in the health design concept of将健康促进交织成环境，，，，defined as weaving or blending health promotion strategies, practices, programs, and policies to fit within, complement, and build from existing settings and environments. This is a common practice for health promotion practitioners but one that merits further intentionality for our field of health promotion.

Recently, Ipublished a paper与社区合作伙伴一起与更强大的奥斯汀一起工作。免费的成人健身课程（例如Zumba）被“交织”到具有广泛社区范围的公共场所，包括社区诊所，图书馆，公园，娱乐中心和公立学校。外围beplay除了适应性的好处之外，这项混合方法研究还发现，这些类别有益于营造归属和积极的人际交往感。

5. What do you like most about working with students and our future public health workforce?

Working with students is one aspect of my job that I value most. I continue to learn with every cohort of students and embrace a philosophy of teacher as student, student as teacher, and students and teachers as co-learners. I enjoy seeing students excel when they have a safe and supportive learning space to develop their own agency for public health research and practice.

Clickhereto learn more about Dr. Springer and his impactful work.