Letter to the Editor: Healthy Campus Initiative to review signs for more inclusive phrasing

The Healthy Campus Initiative would like to add the following to the discussion triggered by Alexandra Tashman in her article, “Initiative’s signs use ableist discourse” published on Oct. 22.

Healthy Campus Initiative works to make the healthy choice, the easy choice guided by the following core values:

• High level wellness: maximizing the potential of
  individuals
• Personal responsibility: promoting freedom and autonomy
• Diversity: social groups defining health differently,
  however they define it is “right”
• Equity: striving
  to reduce health disparities as much as possible
• Integrative: body, mind and spirit are mutually
  influencing and emerging in a communal context

The signage in some of the UCLA parking garages to promote stair walking over elevator riding was inspired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s evidence-based recommendations of promoting physical activity at points of decision. These are called point-of-decision prompts. We welcome input as we work together with the UCLA community to reach the goal of making UCLA the healthiest campus in the country. We plan on reviewing our wording, consulting and coordinating with our Adaptive Recreation program, the UCLA Committee on Disability, and we are open to suggestions from the community on how we should phrase our prompts to be more inclusive.

Wendy Slusser is the associate vice provost of the UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative and a health sciences clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA School of Public Health.