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Amanda Merck

Merck completed her MPH with a concentration in Physical Activity and Health. She curates content for Salud America! (@SaludAmerica), a Latino childhood obesity prevention project based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She focuses on the latest research, resources, and stories related to policy, systems, and environmental changes to enhance equitable access to safe places for kids and families to walk, bike, and play.

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Articles by Amanda Merck

15 Examples of Health Involvement in Complete Streets


Cyclist riding the green bicycle lane

The safety of roads and sidewalks impacts everyone. Although Complete Streets initiatives are traditionally led by a transportation or public works sector, the public health organizations have played a role in communities across the country. A new report from the University of Chicago’s Institute for Health Research and Policy provides key strategies from public health agencies, advocates, and practitioners in 15 U.S. jurisdictions who have engaged in Complete Streets-related initiatives in their communities. Why Complete Streets? Complete Streets initiatives aim to create more equitable transportation systems by providing affordable, convenient, and accessible modes of mobility for all users. This includes individuals who rely on walking, biking, and public transit as their ...

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Colorado Reconsidering School Discipline for PreK through Second Grade


Elementary school kids arrive at school from the school bus

Colorado (21.5% Latino) students have faced high rates of disciplinary action for years. In 2018, nearly 6,000 preschool through second grade students were suspended or expelled from schools in that state. That’s why state leaders are pushing to make stricter standards for expelling and suspending young students. Harsh Discipline is Troubling Ineffective school discipline policies disrupt learning and harm a child’s future, according to EdSource. This kind of correction can also possibly trigger traumatic stress, reinforce unconscious biases, and hinder opportunities to address the causes of challenging behavior. Young students behave in challenging ways. The classroom setting and school schedules can prompt defiant behaviors. Colorado state legislators realize the ...

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Tell Texas Leaders: We Want Safe Streets and Zero-Fatality Goal


Vision Zero Texas Advocates 3

One person is injured every 2 minutes and one killed every 2.5 hours on Texas roads. Texas (39.4% Latino) is the eighth-most dangerous state for people walking. Latinos and people of color, people in low-income neighborhoods, and older adults are in the most danger when walking. Unfortunately, it can take decades to create safer roads if there is no political will. That’s why Vision Zero Texas is asking Texans to sign a petition for safer neighborhood streets and send a letter to leaders of the Texas transportation system requesting a zero-fatality goal. Click here to sign a petition asking state leaders to allow cities to lower speed limits. Click here to send a letter asking transportation leaders to prioritize road safety to end traffic deaths. Vision Zero Texas will ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 4/23: Achieving Health Equity Through Law & Policy



Health disparities exist because unjust laws, policies, and practices have shaped the physical, economic, and social environment over many generations. This creates inequitable opportunities for education, jobs, housing, and transportation. Law and policy are essential tools to reduce health disparities, which particularly affect Latinos and other communities of color that face more poverty and less opportunity than communities with more political and economic power. Individuals and groups with political, financial, legal, and social power can ensure that laws, policies, institutions, and investments do not intentionally or unintentionally benefit some at the expense of others. Join #SaludTues at 1 p.m. ET on April 23, 2019, to tweet about legal and policy strategies that ...

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Cities Fight to Lower Speed Limits on Deadly Roads


Lowering speed limits in Portland. Source: Twitter @andrewtheen

Speed—not speeding—is the most critical factor in the severity of a crash. However, due to state preemption of local authority, many cities can’t lower speed limits without lengthy state studies and procedures. Some cities, though, are still pushing to drop speeds, and uplift safety. Lower Speed Limits, Safer Roads Traffic crashes are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the U.S. In 2017, speeding accounted for more than one fourth of all traffic fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Check out this interactive map of over 59,000 speeding fatalities between 2010 and 2015, thanks to the National Coalition for Safer Roads (NCSR) and the Vision Zero Network. A 5 mph increase in the maximum speed limit was ...

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9 Strategies to Improve Intersection of Transportation and Dialysis


William Scott (right) and his wife, Teresa, arrived at DaVita Med Center Dialysis in Houston on Tuesday morning, after missing William's appointment on Monday. "It's just good he got in here," she says.

Chronic kidney disease is a crisis in the U.S. — yet, the intersection of transportation and healthcare is failing. Public transportation agencies, healthcare providers, and patients are concerned about the rising demand, cost of providing dialysis trips for patients with the illness. Of the forms of dialysis transportation, ambulance rides only make up 5% of trips in the US. However, they account for half of the $3 billion spent annually on dialysis transportation, according to a 2013 study in the Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Costs could be reduced by one-third if ambulance use dropped to 1% of trips. Gathering Needed Data Before policy could change, all parties involved needed to know the lay of the land. In 2016, researchers with Cooperative ...

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Pensacola Hiring First-Ever Complete Streets Transportation Planner


Florida street without crosswalk.

Florida leads the nation in the number of pedestrians killed while walking on the street. The state (25.6% Latino) had the highest Pedestrian Danger Index numbers, according to the latest Dangerous by Design report from Smart Growth America. In response, Grover Robinson, the mayor of Pensacola, announced that the city created a new staff position to increase the safety of city roads by advancing Complete Streets. This is another step in the city’s plans to make pedestrian safety a priority, following the Florida Department of Transportation updating their 30-year old Complete Streets policy in 2014. “The problem we have is that we’ve done such a good job at building streets, and building them for cars, and building them for cars to go fairly fast that they aren’t ...

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Twin Cities Transformation: Moving Vehicles to Moving People


Bike lane in Minneapolis Source Michael Andersen with PlacesForBikes

During rush hour, the eight-lane Mississippi River Bridge in Minnesota collapsed, killing 13 people, and injuring over 140 more on Aug. 1, 2007. This tragedy was a wake-up call for officials in the Minneapolis-St. Paul “Twin Cities.” They could not afford to build their way out of congestion or repair the state’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure. To achieve safe transportation improvements for a growing population, the Twin Cities’  Metropolitan (Met) Council began to transition away from policies that move vehicles to ones that move people. The evolution began by rethinking how to measure road performance, according to a case study of the Met Council by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Motivation to Change The bridge collapse highlighted ...

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47 States Don’t Meet the Recommended Student-to-Counselor Ratio


Police in public schools.

Schools today are under-resourced, and students are overcriminalized, particularly children of color and those with disabilities, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). For the first time, the U.S. Department of Education now requires every public school to report the number of social workers, nurses, and psychologists employed. The ACLU analysis of the federal data provides a state-level, student-to-staff ratio for each position as well as a review of law enforcement presence in schools, student arrests, and referrals. The real crisis of schools isn’t violence, but a widespread failure to hire enough support staff that can meet students’ mental health needs, according to the report. The study uses data from the 2015-16 academic year, ...

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