Public Health

You can view the full map at GeoCommons.

(Tanya Snyder at Capitol Hill Streetsblog covered the report from a national standpoint, her article is here.)

If you've ridden a Metro bus in Greater Los Angeles, you've seen them.  Those weird tv's which either seem to be stuck at a blasting volume or completely muted, playing a mix of mind numbing trivia, local public interest news, or advertisements.  Purchasing some time on TransitTV is a pretty cost effective way to get out a message, when you consider that 2 million people ride Metro buses every day.  But most Metro riders find the televisions to be a waste of space at best, noise pollution at worst.

What’s a food desert?  When I hear the term I think of old Road Runner cartoons or a barren landscape of rocks and sun with a Joshua tree or cactus off in the distance.  It’s not the landscape many Angelenos are currently seeing of green hills, lush full trees and wildflowers blooming after a winter that finally freed the state of its drought designation.

Streetsblog readers are likely at least somewhat familiar with many of the  connections between health and transportation; conference speakers explored those connections, with an emphasis on their impacts on underserved communities of color. This equity/transportation/health dialog was then tied into calls for action on local, state and federal campaigns.

As part of a California Endowment Health Journalism Mini-Fellowship , I'll be looking at the five communities that were awarded PLACE Grants to see how their programs are proceeding and how the communities have changed as a result of the grants.  In some cases, Streetsblog has already covered part a portion of the PLACE program in the community, and in other places we'll be giving the communities a first look.  Each PLACE Grantee is expected to create progressive updates to their Master Plans or other planning documents, bring about some sort of physical change and program promotional events designed to encourage more active lifestyles.

(The following article is by Ruben Cantu, the program director for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network.  This month, they're holding a series of community convenings throughout California to discuss the public health impacts of our transportation decisions on our communities.  Los Angeles' convening will be at the California Endowment Building one week from today from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M.  To register, click here. - DN)

Dr. Richard J. Jackson is Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Science in the UCLA School of Public Health. We're happy to host opinion pieces from academic and other community leaders. Contact damien@streetsblog.org if you're interested.

The White House's inter-agency task force on childhood obesity, developed under the stewardship of First Lady Michelle Obama, today released a 124-page report recommending dozens of policy shifts in health care, community development, and transportation that it estimates can bring down obesity rates among kids by 5 percent over the next 20 years.