Healthy Camp Study Enrollment

Do you know the top 3 things you can do to improve the health of campers and staff in your camp?

• Control the spread of infectious/communicable diseases.  Promote hand-washing and good hygiene.
• Reduce slips, trips, and falls by requiring all campers and staff to wear closed-toed shoes at all times.
• Improve your health monitoring by tracking injuries and illnesses to determine when, where, and how camper and staff health is being impacted.  Make changes in appropriate areas.

Want to learn more about providing a Healthy Camp? - Join this Important Study!

ACA is conducting a 5-year study of injuries and illnesses in camp. There is still time to enroll your camp for the summer of 2009 and 2010. If you want to learn the best intervention strategies to keep your staff on the job and your campers in program and not in the health lodge, then you should join this important study.

Why join?

• Free - No cost to participate;
• No special affiliation is required; ACA Accreditation status is NOT required
• Confidential - Your camp will not be named in any way
• Risk management tool!-  You’ll receive a FREE report of your camp's injuries and illnesses after each summer of participation.  You’ll also receive a national report so you can compare your camp with national averages.
• Marketing - Tell parents that you are participating in a national camp safety study

Goals of the Healthy Camp Study!

Thanks to the generosity of Markel Insurance Company, and the skills and systems of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University (OSU), the American Camp Association (ACA), and the Association of Camp Nurses (ACN), we have a five-year opportunity to gather illness and injury data from day and resident camps. As a result of this study we want to: track camp illnesses and injuries; monitor trends in camp health; identify risk and protection factors; and track/analyze appropriate intervention strategies.

These strategies will make a proven difference in your camp's health awareness and performance!

Camps that have been serious about tracking illnesses and injuries over time have found ways to make significant reductions in the time campers and staff lose from program, have lowered their health costs, and provided very specific staff training on effective interventions.

What is Expected of Participating Camps?

• Identify a designated reporter (camp health director, nurse, physician, or other camp health care personnel (LPN, EMT, etc.)
• Reporter will log into a web-based data entry system on a weekly basis throughout the summer to provide specific information about injuries and illnesses that occurred that week. (Camps who participated in 2006-2008 reported spending approximately 18 minutes per week completing reports

To view Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and the enrollment form, please click on the following link. Thank you!!

If you are unable to get to the link or have additional questions, please contact the research department at 765-349-3511 or research@ACAcamps.org.