Basia Belza, a core investigator of the Health Promotion Research Center at the UW School of Public Health, and partners in five states authored an award-winning guide for developing mall walking programs throughout the country.

“Mall Walking: A Program Resource Guide” received a 2016 APEX Award for Publication Excellence. Belza was lead author of the guide, which took home the award of excellence for one-of-a-kind publications in the education and training category.

Developed from research conducted by the Health Promotion Research Center and sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the guide presented practical strategies for starting and maintaining mall walking programs in malls and other venues. It garnered national attention last year from news outlets such as Newsweek, The Washington Post and The Atlantic.

“Malls are really having to reinvent themselves,” Belza told KING 5 News. “Because of all the online shopping people do, malls have to re-craft why people come. And what better way than to exercise.” Belza is an adjunct professor of health services and a professor of biobehavioral nursing and health systems.

Additional authors of the guide include David Brown, senior behavioral scientist at the CDC division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity; Dori Rosenberg, affiliate assistant professor of health services at the UW School of Public Health; Laura Farren, who contributed as a project coordinator at the HPRC; Christina Miyawaki, who contributed as a research associate and project manager at the HPRC; Peg Allen from Washington University in St. Louis; Sarah Janicek from the University of Illinois at Chicago; Diane King from the University of Alaska, Anchorage; David Marquez from the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Dina Jones from West Virginia University.