"The S.P.A.C.E Hypothesis: Physical Activity as Medium — Not Medicine — for Public Health Impact"

Assistant Professor Andres Bustamante is co-author of an article in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews exploring the role of physical activity.
 
The title of the article is “The S.P.A.C.E Hypothesis: Physical Activity as Medium — Not Medicine — for Public Health Impact.”
 
Co-authors are University of Illinois at Chicago colleagues Assistant Professor Eduardo Esteban Bustamante (first author), instructor Jared Donald Ramer, doctoral student Maria Enid Santiago-Rodriguez, Associate Professor Tara Gisela Mehta, and Associate Professor David X. Marquez; and Florida International University Professor Stacy Lynn Frazier.
 
Bustamante is a developmental psychologist who designs and implements play-based early childhood science installations in places and spaces that families spend time such as parks, bus-stops, and grocery stores. He also utilizes web-mediated platforms to provide on-going and embedded professional development to early childhood teachers to support them in engaging in hands-on science activities. He maintains an intentional focus on translating rigorous science from the lab, into meaningful research in the classroom, and the community.

Andres Bustamante

​Abstract
 
Most scientifically tested physical activity interventions end when research funding ends; interventions that last struggle to sustain benefits. We hypothesize that long-term public health impact will benefit from a shift in how interventionists conceptualize physical activity—from a form of medicine, of value for its innate health benefits, to a malleable medium, of value for the dynamic contexts it creates.