Dr. Walt Thompson will be the presenter at the 2015 Miller-Burdeshaw Lecture Thursday, April 9 at 12:30 p.m. in Pohl 206. A light lunch will be provided.
The Miller-Burdeshaw Lecture is designed to expose students to information and expertise from outside the university.
Dr. Thompson is associate dean for graduate studies and research and a tenured Regents’ Professor of kinesiology and health in the department of nutrition at Georgia State University. He also serves as the director of the Maternal and Child Health Leadership Training Program.
Thompson, in addition to his academic endeavors, serves numerous roles within the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), including chairman emeritus for ACSM International Relations Committee, chairman of the ACSM American Fitness Index TM and founding chairman of the Committee on Accreditation for the Exercise Sciences for the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). Thompson has published numerous research articles, served as author or editor of 13 books and has received in excess of $20 million in research funding.
The focus of the presentation will be the ACSM American Fitness Index (AFI) initiative. The AFI data report measures the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States and provides a score and ranking reflecting a composite of preventive health behaviors, levels of chronic disease conditions, health care access and community resources and policies that support physical activity. Included in the report are benchmarks for each data indicator to highlight areas that need improvement.
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