Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to Northeastern University's

Center for the Study of Sport in Society builds on community

partnerships to benefit youth in Mattapan, Jamaica Plain

Boston, Mass - Thanks to a three-year matching grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society and several community partners plan to utilize organized sports and physical activity programs to promote healthy development in youth and increase youth access to health care.

"Our goal is to make the right connections between the community health centers, coaches, kids and their families," said Kevin Fitzgerald, co-director of the Center's Urban Youth Sports program and director of community relations for this project.

Health care centers will host registration and, throughout the year, pediatricians will prescribe physical activity and sport.

"We'll offer traditional sports, as well as lacrosse, martial arts, or tennis. We want to create a broad, appealing variety of choices that will get them up and moving," Fitzgerald said.

The RWJF Local Initiative Funding Partners program is highly competitive. The Center's innovative program was one of only 21 among 313 projects selected nationwide.

The $430,000 RWJF matching grant is based on the concept that local funding sources have the clearest understanding of their communities' needs.

With matching contributions from local partners, the project will receive a total of $880,000 in funding. BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts is the primary funding partner for the matching grant.

"BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts is committed to youth fitness and has been a very active funder of community programs for the past three years," said Sylvia Stevens-Edouard, community relations director for BlueCrossBlueShield.

"We believe that our partnership with Northeastern has helped us to develop a truly creative, unique and effective program."

The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers is providing an equal share of funding to complete the match. Brookside Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain and Mattapan Community Health Center are participating partners for the project and provide the direct link to the community.

Collaborating partners include:

• Boston Children's Hospital
• Boston Medical Center
• Boston Youth Sport Congress
• Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the City of Boston
• Parks & Recreation Department
• Harvard Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Harvard School of Public Health

The Center's Urban Youth Sports Health Connection program is aimed at 6- to 18-year-olds in Mattapan and Jamaica Plain. These two communities were selected on the basis of both need and their unique demographic characteristics, according to Art Taylor, director of the Center's Urban Youth Sports program.

"This program has the potential to become a national model for addressing physical inactivity in urban youth," Taylor said.

A serious nationwide problem, physical inactivity is more prevalent in the cities than in suburbs. It poses a "public health challenge for reducing the national burden of unnecessary illness and premature death," according to the U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health.

Twenty-five percent of Boston youth participated in organized sports, compared with 85 to 90 percent in the suburbs, according to a 1997 Northeastern University Boston Youth Sport Need Assessment. Clinical studies show that sports and recreation programs can help youth establish lifelong, healthy, physical activity patterns. Regular physical activity can ward off life-threatening diseases; reduce feelings of depression and anxiety; help control weight and obesity; and build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints, according to the President's Council on Physical Fitness. Doctors, through the community health care system, are being trained to offer quality sport physicals by Boston Children's Hospital, which will result in comprehensive physical examinations being offered to program participants.

The RWJF, based in Princeton, NJ, is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates its grantmaking in three goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse � tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, along with the program�s many collaborating partners, is committed to serving as the hub that connects efforts to promote physical activity and the healthy development of youth.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : December 20, 2000
Contacts: Liz Alcock (617) 373-5434

Stephen Burke (617) 373-8952 (Sport in Society)

Northeastern University's
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SPORT IN SOCIETY
716 Columbus Avenue, Suite 161 CP
Boston, MA 02120
Phone: (617) 373-4025
Fax: (617) 373-4566

E-MAIL US at [email protected]