Does your city, county or state have a Complete Streets policy to promote the safety of drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and all? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago would love to know! You can nominate of public health agencies and advocates who help develop, adopt, and implement Complete Streets policies from 2013-2018 for a "Complete Streets and Public Health" recognition. Nominations are accepted from now to March 30, 2018.
Why Complete Streets?
Many Latino communities lack safe places to play and be active, according to a Salud America! research review. This can often lead to fewer opportunities to be physically active. Complete Streets policies can help. Complete Streets are equitable for all users—drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and commuters ...
Swimming is one of the most promising physical activities to get Latino kids active in and out of school. But as many as 6 in 10 Latinos do not know how to swim. Fortunately, people are stepping up to help. A Florida program gives out coupons for free swim safety classes. Detroit is combining swimming and literacy. And recently a Holocaust survivor helped a YWCA put together the Los Pecesitos ("The Little Fishes”) program to help Latino kids learn to swim in Tulsa, Okla. "What we know is that the drowning rates for children of color are two to three times higher than that of Caucasian children,” said Lacey Thompson Caywood, director of health and wellness for the Tulsa YWCA. “So there was a need for basic swim lessons.” In addition to preventing drowning, swim ...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wants your help to shape the next edition of its Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which haven't been updated since 2008. The guidelines recommend how everyone can improve their health with regular physical activity. Now, a new report from the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee shows how higher levels of physical activity among children and adolescents are associated with favorable health outcomes, including heart and muscle fitness, bone health, and weight status. Speak up on to shape the guidelines now! Copy this model public comment developed by our Salud America! research team, click the “submit” button, and paste the comment on health.gov's comments website by April 2, 2018: I support ...
Playing can help a kid's healthy brain development. But many communities are not kid-play-friendly. Latino neighborhoods tend to lack safe places that welcome kids and multi-generational families to play. That's why KaBOOM! created the Play Everywhere Playbook. The Playbook helps cities design healthy play spaces with kids in mind. The Playbook is has four sections built on input from city and community leaders, health experts, urban planners and affected families: Fundamentals: defining what makes a space a PLAYce—wondrous, convenient, inviting, shared, unifying, challenging and intentional
Design guides: streets and sidewalks; parks trails, and public spaces; transit; multi-family housing; commercial spaces; civic spaces; and moveable and pop-up play
Case ...
When fitness guru Maria Guerra designed her gym, she of course plotted space for all the usual stuff, like free weights, exercise machines and classes. Guerra also made room for something she’d never seen in any gym. She calls it a “transformation station” and it’s essentially a heart-health resource center. There are tools to measure blood pressure and body mass index, plus charts and brochures to help make sense of those readings. The information is in English and Spanish, and it’s free to everyone, client or not. The station also includes a “challenge wall.” This is where people who are ready to improve their fitness post before and after photos; challengers get to update their “after” image each month. “Why work out and have pretty muscles if the ...
The places we are born, grow, live, work, and age were not created equitably for all. Women of color tend to live in places with less access to opportunity—safe places to walk and play, healthy food, quality education, public transportation, employment opportunities, and preventive health care. This hinders educational attainment, income, and physical and mental health. Fortunately, women are increasingly standing up to the historical social, environmental, and political issues that spur poor health. To celebrate Women’s History Month, let's use #SaludTues on March 13, 2018, to tweet about awesome women who have and continue to build a culture of health for Latino and all families in the places they live. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: "Women in Health, the Environment, ...
A pedestrian is killed by a motor vehicle once a week, on average, in San Antonio. In fact, 219 pedestrians died and 607 were severely injured in nearly 4,000 pedestrian-vehicle collisions from 2011-2015 on San Antonio roadways. That's a worse rate than Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, and many other cities. It's even worse in San Antonio's lower-income areas. In these areas, communities are designed for tires and steel, rather than people. When people don't feel safe to walk for health, recreation, or transportation, it harms their quality of life. They don't have an equitable chance to live healthier lives. San Antonio leaders are working to create safer streets for all. So officials launched a Vision Zero initiative and are continuing to analyze geographical data to ...
George Block has fought for children for a long time. When Block saw disadvantaged kids not able to swim at local pools in the 1970s in San Antonio (63% Latino population), he fought for a new aquatic center that would provide free swim programs for them. When Block jogged through a low-income neighborhood and heard Mexican soccer games blaring from homes, but low youth soccer participation in the 1980s, he drove changes to enable more play. He even helped launch San Antonio Sports, a foundation that builds new sports facilities and spurs school facilities to open publicly. So…what did Block and his team do in 2016 when he saw many San Antonio families not using these facilities to capacity? He stepped up again and created a literal “gateway” to promote family use of ...
When he was a kid, Rey Saldaña couldn’t swim. His family couldn’t afford lessons. So Saldaña was a little scared as he and his second-grade classmates walked into a chlorine-smelling aquatic center to learn how to swim as part of a federally funded program in San Antonio, Texas (63.34% Latino). He overcame his fear and learned to swim, thanks to that “Learn to Swim” program. Sadly, the program folded before his younger brother could participate. When Saldaña became a member of the San Antonio City Council many years later, he helped recreate the Learn to Swim program to reduce drowning and build kids’ confidence. He didn’t stop there. Saldaña worked with others to on two big projects—renovating an aquatic center and building a new one—that could ...
