Drick kranvatten. Ett kommunikationsprojekt i VA-Branschen. Dokumentation och utvärdering

Drick kranvattens syfte är att öka ungdomars medvetenhet om kranvattnets värde. Projektet innehåller kranvattenautomater till skolorna och färdiga lektioner på drickkranvatten.se. Utvärderingen visar på en positiv inställning hos lärare och elever till projektet och till frågeställningar om vatten

Think H2O! – An educational partnership to raise students’ awareness of the water challenges

Think H2O! – An educational partnership to raise students’ awareness of the water challenges Introduction: To secure future access to safe water is one of the most important sustainability challenges, on local and global level. Water is a cause of conflict and cooperation in an increasingly complex world. This crucial challenge requires a transdisciplinary approach (Segalàs & Tejedor, 2013) and extensive educational efforts and continuous engagement of many different stakeholders and actors. Sydvatten AB and Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) cooperate in several educational projects Sydvatten is a non-profit, municipality-owned company that produces drinking water for 900,000 residents in the south of Sweden and has a long-term responsibility to ensure future supply of drinking water for this region. LUCSUS is a university platform for education, research and cooperation inside and outside academia on questions related to sustainable development. Objectives: This paper gives an example of how different stakeholders and actors can work together in educational projects to highlight the value of water and to increase young people’s awareness, knowledge and understanding of water issues. More specifically the project aims to demonstrate the wide range of topics within water challenges and to encourage students to further education or engagement to promote sustainable development within the water sector. Methods: In the long-term project Think H2 O! Sydvatten offers teachers and their students in upper secondary school, a scholarship for a two-day watercourse at lake Bolmen, which is one of the most important resources for drinking water in Sweden. The course activities are a mix of workshops, lectures, role-play, experiments, canoeing, camping and outdoor cooking. The teachers and facilitators are from LUCSUS, Sydvatten, Vildmarksgymnasiet (the local Wilderness school) and the local business Tiraholms Fisk. The many partners involved give the students access to different competencies, skills and experiences. Master students at Lund University have developed some of the teaching material. Results: This collaboration emphasizes the transdisciplinary aspects of water, which increase the pedagogical value. The results are based on three pilot groups during 2014, with totally 150 students. The students’ evaluations demonstrate increased awareness of the value of water and a deeper understanding of the complexity of water challenges. Conclusion: The promising results show the great potential of the project and during 2015 another 500 students will be invited to participate. Despite the difficulties to evaluate the lasting effects, it is the intention of Sydvatten, the funder, to expand the project to a long-term investment. Due to demanding future sustainability challenges, it is Sydvatten’s and LUCSUS’ responsibility, as community stakeholders, to promote greater public awareness of the value of water. The project Think H2 O! is an example of social responsibility of actors in the public sector. Keywords: education, partnership, water challenges, value of wate

Digital Innovations and Self-determined exercise motivation : an interdisciplinary approach

In face of escalating health care costs, new technology holds great promise for innovative solutions and new, more sustainable health care models. Technology centers around the individual, allowing for greater autonomy and control in health issues and access to tailored information and customized health behavior interventions. While this offers good opportunities for both public health impact and improved well-being at individual levels, it also emphasizes the need for properly designed e-health models firmly based on scientific principles and adequate theoretical frameworks. Consequently, this project aims to design an interactive tool utilizing an interdisciplinary approach combining motivational theory with the fields of information technology and business model innovation. In collaboration with two companies from the e-health industry, the purpose is to design, apply and evaluate a person-centered interactive prototype for maintainable and self-determined exercise motivation

Maternal characteristics and tobacco use in early pregnancy.

<p>Maternal characteristics and tobacco use in early pregnancy.</p

Tobacco habits before pregnancy and in early pregnancy in mothers of 1 086 213 live-born infants born in Sweden 1999 to 2009.

<p>Tobacco habits before pregnancy and in early pregnancy in mothers of 1 086 213 live-born infants born in Sweden 1999 to 2009.</p

Prenatal exposures and birth indices, and subsequent risk of polycystic ovary syndrome: a national registry-based cohort study

Objective To study the associations between prenatal exposures and risk of developing polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Design National registry‐based cohort study. Setting Sweden. Population Girls born in Sweden during the years 1982–1995 (n = 681 123). Methods The girls were followed until the year 2010 for a diagnosis of PCOS. We estimated the associations between maternal body mass index (BMI), smoking, and size at birth with the risk of developing a PCOS diagnosis. Risks were calculated by adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Main outcome measures A diagnosis of PCOS at 15 years of age or later. Results During the follow‐up period 3738 girls were diagnosed with PCOS (0.54%). Girls with mothers who were overweight or obese had 1.5–2.0 times higher risk of PCOS (aHR 1.52, 95% CI 1.36–1.70; aHR 1.97, 95% CI 1.61–2.41, respectively), compared with girls born to mothers of normal weight. The risk of PCOS was increased if the mother smoked during pregnancy (1–9 cigarettes/day, aHR 1.31, 95% CI 1.18–1.47; ≥10 cigarettes/day, aHR 1.44, 95% CI 1.27–1.64). Being born small for gestational age (SGA) was associated with a later diagnosis of PCOS in crude estimates, but the association was not significant after adjusting for maternal factors. Conclusions Maternal smoking and increased BMI appear to increase the risk of PCOS in offspring. The association between SGA and the development of PCOS appears to be mediated by maternal factors. Tweetable abstract Smoking during pregnancy and high maternal BMI are associated with PCOS diagnosis in the offspring