Examining Environmental Health Risk Perception Among Recreation Students

Recreation students are likely to encounter various environmental health issues in the course of their studies and future work in a variety of settings. Potential exposures may include: vector-borne disease, skin disease, sun, swimming pool chemicals, indoor air quality such as asthma and carbon monoxide, and injury prevention issues. Health education seeks to reduce health risks and promote wellness, so understanding recreation students' environmental health awareness may provide insight into how well prepared they are to protect themselves and those with whom they will work regarding environmental health risk factors. This study used a questionnaire format to assess environmental health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Specifically, what do these students understand about environmental health issues and how does that understanding translate into risk reduction behavior? Upon Internal Review Board approval, graduate and undergraduate students majoring in Recreation at a large Mid-Western university will be recruited to participate in an online survey. Approximately 70 environmental health knowledge, attitude, and behavior questions related to issues that recreation professionals are likely to encounter will be administered through surveygizmo.com, and will be analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. Results and data obtained from this study will serve to generate a needs assessment to determine any area(s) of environmental health education that could use additional attention among Recreation majors. Learning objectives: By the end of this presentation, participants should be able to: 1) Discuss environmental health risk factors likely to be encountered by Recreation majors; 2) Identify areas of environmental health education that may need to be a focus in the Recreation curriculum.