The Team Nutrition Grant Project began in 2003 with the goal to guide and assist schools to create and maintain a coordinated, comprehensive school health program. Such a program integrates a school’s child nutrition programs, with the classroom, the community, and entire school environment. A coordinated, comprehensive school health program (CSHP) can be implemented to create a healthy school environment through a “model” nutrition policy. Using the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Team Nutrition’s Changing the Scene, A Guide to Local Action, the project proposed to implement the model at a state level by forming a state level coalition of key decision makers within the school environment.

The purpose of this report is to inform the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and other interested organizations and individuals of the results of our assessment and to request the collaboration of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in developing specific objectives and strategies for reducing children’s exposure to ambient air pollutants and mercury in fish. New and updated objectives and strategies developed during the assessment and in collaboration with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality for reducing the environmental exposures of children will be incorporated into the Healthy Arizona 2010 Strategic Plan.