Journalist | Author | Speaker

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Health, Health disparities

Coaches turn recess into fun, constructive classroom break

by Suzanne Bohan
February 28, 2013
Kids and Playworks coaches playing roshambo. Photo courtesy of Playworks.

Kids and Playworks coaches playing roshambo.
Photo courtesy of Playworks.

The kids obviously adored Coach “Trell” as she strode into an elementary school in San Pablo, Calif., jumping around her and asking questions. The coach, Shantrell Sneed, was with Playworks, an Oakland, Calif. nonprofit whose mission is to turn recess into a constructive, fun and healthy experience.

When recess is largely unsupervised, conflicts arise on the schoolyard which interrupts class time as teachers work to resolve altercations. Or kids get bullied and traumatized.

So Playworks coaches organize play during recess so it promotes physical activity, conflict resolution, friendship and improved academic performance – which research shows all ultimately help the students live longer, healthier lives.

One game Coach Trell taught was roshambo — the “rock, paper, scissors” hand game. As kids defeat rivals, they accumulate “cheerleaders,” and all shout out the final winner’s name. One student asked if the winner got a prize.

“Yes, you get the entire class as your cheerleader as a prize,” Sneed said.

Playworks launched in 1996, and with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation it has expanded into some 15 cities and trained more than 100,000 kids in healthy play and conflict resolution. And principals are grateful for the results. The one at the San Pablo school told me that before she brought in Playworks in 2010, about five children a day were sent to her office for discipline issues. A year later is was down to just a few a week, said Alicia Azcarraga, principal of Riverside Elementary School.

A 2011 study of eight Bay Area Playworks sites found when implemented successfully it improved the school climate, supported better academic achievement, contributed to feelings of safety on campus, and improved relationships among students and between students and adults.

Schools pay some of the cost for the program, in part to ensure their commitment to its success, and fundraising by Playworks covers the rest.

Playworks is another example of the many brilliant programs underway by numerous organizations around the country to reduce disparities in health. And not by providing more medical care, which largely only addresses diseases after they arise, but by improving the communities in which people live.

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Health, Health disparities

New laws reform high school discipline practices

by Suzanne Bohan
February 28, 2013
Youth in California speak in support of high school discipline reform.

Youth in California speak in support of high school discipline reform.

This hasn’t gotten much notice, but a “listening campaign” in California communities by a major nonprofit led to a swift – in legislative terms – enactment of five new California laws to reduce high schools suspension and expulsion rates. The long-term result is fewer incarcerations and healthier lives.

“None of us had that on our radars,” said Daniel Zingale, who headed the campaign. “I’d never heard about it being an issue.”

Zingale, a policy expert with deep roots in Sacramento, now works for the California Endowment on the nonprofit’s statewide team. In September 2010, Zingale and his staff held community meetings in each of 14 communities selected by the California Endowment to join its new $1 billion, 10-year initiative to put these areas on a far healthier, more hopeful track. Hundred showed up at each meeting.

The state team asked audience members what they would change to improve the prospects for young people. Nine of the communities independently named reversing the high levels of school suspensions and expulsions for youth, particularly blacks and Latinos.

As more and more communities raised the issue, the meeting organizers shook their heads in astonishment.

“It completely came from the ground up, and they were right,” Zingale said. In the following months, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education caught wind of the nascent movement in the Endowment’s communities to reform school discipline. It did its own analysis and found that that California suspends 400,000 kids a year, more than those getting a diploma.

We’re suspending more kids than we’re graduating in a year,’” said Zingale. “Amazing.”

During his or her lifetime, the average high school dropout will cost taxpayers $292,000 in lower tax revenues and incarceration costs, and that doesn’t include health care costs.

Zingale began educating lawmakers about the issue.

In the spring of 2011 seven bills were introduced by several lawmakers that made it harder to suspend or expel students for nonviolent offenses, and to offer more counseling and other supports for kids who are acting up.

To support the bills, youth from the 14-neighborhood initiative circulated a petition, gathering 15,000 signatures to deliver to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.

They also went to Sacramento to testify in support of the bills. Others attended a day-long hearing in Los Angeles.

Russlynn H. Ali, assistant secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the LA hearing. She told the audience that her office had recently launched an investigation into school discipline practices nationwide.

“Time after time, students for the very same offenses, with the very same offense histories, receive very different punishments,” she said.  “It’s both about what we tolerate, and of whom.”

After suspension, students didn’t feel as connected to the school or that there were adults on campus who cared about them. High school provides a critical opportunity to get guidance and support from adults to steer them to a better future.

In September 2012, Gov. Brown signed five of the new laws. These made it harder to suspend or expel students for nonviolent, non-drug related offenses, and pressured schools to provide support services to youth acting up, such as counseling. One also provided a path back to high school for those in the juvenile justice system.

In a victory press release, Dr. Robert Ross, the CEO of the California Endowment, praised the youth who raised the issue and doggedly advocated for it. “You came together. You pushed. You were smart and strategic. And you would not give up,” wrote Ross.

TAKEWAY: This is another powerful example, in addition to several others in this series of blog posts, that portray the stunning results from truly listening to what ordinary people want to improve their lives and health.

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Health, Health disparities

LA residents advocate for second chance for ex-offenders

by Suzanne Bohan
February 28, 2013
Vanessa La Blanc at the Lorenzo construction site in August 2012. She's so impressed her supervisors that they want her to stay for the entire project; She left prison two months earlier, after never working a full-time job.

Vanessa La Blanc at the Lorenzo construction site in August 2012. She’s so impressed her supervisors that they want her to stay for the entire project; She left prison two months earlier, after never working a full-time job.

This is Vanessa La Blanc, 34. This photo was taken on Aug. 24, 2012, and it’s on a construction site in South Los Angeles where a remarkable construction project is underway. It represents a win for the developer, the community, and former convicts like La Blanc who want a new start.

On June 18 – two months earlier – she’d been released from prison in Chowchilla after serving 13 years on a robbery conviction. It stemmed from a crime in South Los Angeles she committed. She grew up there, leaving high school in 10th grade and joining a gang, which she said became like family. But Vanessa grimaced when asked about the “Jungles” tattoo on her arm, which is a daily reminder of her former life.

She was 20 when she entered prison, and at first she was just bitter. But at 27, Vanessa had epiphany.  “Do I want to remain caged up all my life, around all these miserable people?” she asked herself.

The answer became obvious when she began devoting herself to getting out as soon as possible and learning all she could while in prison. She particularly credits an instructor in one class, “Mr. Ed Hamilton,” she said, with teaching her skills that landed her current job.

Vanessa La Blanc pointing at the Los Angeles skyline.

Vanessa La Blanc pointing at the Los Angeles skyline.

After Vanessa got out of prison, her parole officer referred her to the UAW WorkSource Center’s Prison Reentry Incentive program. After she completed it, the program paid for 120 hours of job training and also asked an organization called PVJOBS to assist in her job search. PVJOBS contacted GJM Engineering, a plumbing contractor, who gave Vanessa a chance, hiring her to inspect pipes on a major construction project in South LA. Vanessa was hired on a short-term basis, and she so wowed her supervisors with her work quality and professionalism that they’re keeping her on for the 12 months remaining on the project. Workers on that project receive a minimum of $11.95 per hour.

And it was the work of South LA community advocates that helped ensure she had a chance for such a job.

Here’s how that unfolded: Several nonprofits funded advocacy training for residents in South Los Angeles who objected to the conversion of a former health care facility into high-end condominiums most residents could not afford. The project was dubbed “the Lorenzo Project.”

After organizers and locals spoke at city meetings and ran campaigns, the developer agreed to create a community clinic, support small-business development in the complex, set aside one-third of the construction jobs for locals and another 10 percent for “at risk” residents such as Vanessa, and 5 percent of the 900 apartments will be priced for low-income tenants. City planners in early 2011 approved the revised proposal.

Here’s a link to an LA Times article on the successful outcome, posted on the website of SAJE, or Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, which led the effort in partnership with other nonprofits and foundations.

After a full-day’s work on the construction site, Vanessa heads to an evening job as a janitor at a Farmer’s John meat packing plant.

“Definitely my future is brighter,” she said.

 TAKEAWAY: Community organizing yields remarkable results, including securing good jobs for ex-offenders looking for a new start in life.

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Health, Health disparities

Another teen dream lifted up in Del Norte

by Suzanne Bohan
February 27, 2013
Benjamin Thomas stands with his mother, Michelle Thomas, along the coast in Crescent City, Calif.

Benjamin Thomas stands with his mother, Michelle Thomas, along the coast in Crescent City, Calif.

Benjamin Thomas, 18, once felt like most other Del Norte County youth: He wanted to exit the scenic but economically depressed county right after he graduated.

“The teenage dream is to get out of here as fast as possible,” the high school senior said.

But like Makenzy Williams, whose story is described here, Benjamin joined a youth project organized and funded by the California Endowment as part of a countywide initiative. And that completely changed his outlook.

The Los Angeles nonprofit in 2010 invited Del Norte County in Northern California to join a 10-year social experiment in community transformation, one that’s committed to leaving residents healthier and far more hopeful about the community’s future.

Del Norte was once an economically robust area, when the logging and fishing industry were strong. But those jobs have disappeared, and many now live at or near poverty and suffer more health problems than the average Californian.

The transformation initiative – called Building Healthy Communities – works on multiple fronts to forge lasting changes. And one of those fronts is community organizing – that is, getting citizens together to identify issues that need fixing, and then training them to professionally research and present a solution. Armed with those skills, the community organizers then invite those with the power to change the situation to a public meeting, where they present their research and their demand. And a yes or no answer to the demand is expected at the meeting.

In February 2012, Benjamin joined the Sunset Student Organizing Committee, which was guided by a community organizer working for the Building Healthy Communities initiative. Sunset High is an alternative school, with about 100 students. They then chose their top issue, and one that could be quickly remedied: The lousy lunches served at school.

The big day came on May 15, 2012. School district officials, including the superintendent, arrived at Sunset to hear the organizing committee. “I was extremely nervous,” said Benjamin, who as leader had to open the presentation.

But the jitters didn’t last long. He began to feel the conviction of his words.

“There was a really powerful sentence and I looked out at the crowd and they were looking at me,” Benjamin recalled. “And I was like, “They’re listening to me. They’re not here to listen to some principal. They’re here listening to me! Yeah.”

Other students described the school’s regular offerings of frozen processed burritos, corn dogs, pizza, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets. They only had a salad bar one day a week, and it often ran out and had just a few toppings. In comparison, the youth told the officials, at the larger high school, Del Norte, students every day had a fresh salad bar with many toppings, and multiple freshly-made hot entrees.

And 84 percent of the Sunset students qualify for free or reduced–priced lunches, as they come from low-income homes.  For some, students said, the school lunch may be the most nutritious meal they get all day.

At the end of the hour-long presentation – which starts and ends on time in respect for others’ schedules – the school officials said yes. Within a week Sunset lunches vastly improved.

After experience, Benjamin became more respectful toward authorities, and with his new skills talked to a school official directly about another issue and got a positive resolution. That wouldn’t have happened before, he said – he just would have vented and gotten frustrated. Benjamin also now has a zeal for improving Del Norte and Crescent City, the seat of the county. Because he knows he has the power to do so.

After college, he wants to return to Crescent City and become a community organizer, or take some other civic leadership role.

“Every time someone asked where I was born, I always wanted to say it was somewhere else,” Benjamin said. “And now I say ‘Here. I was born here.’”

“And now I see that I want to change Crescent City and make it a place that everyone can be proud of to be part of.“

 

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Health, Health disparities

What’s your social rank? Status can influence welcome into a doctor’s office

by Suzanne Bohan
February 27, 2013
Dr. Stephen Hwang is a general internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and researcher in its Centre for Research on Inner City Health. He wrote a new study assessing discrimination in doctors’ offices on socioeconomic status.

Dr. Stephen Hwang is a general internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and researcher in its Centre for Research on Inner City Health. He wrote a new study assessing discrimination in doctors’ offices on socioeconomic status.

Family physicians’ offices in Toronto more frequently rebuffed people of low socio-economic status seeking first appointments, even when there is no economic incentive to do so, a new study found. All Canadians have universal, publicly-funded health insurance.

In 2011, researchers called nearly 400 family practice offices seeking a first appointment,

posing as either a newly-transferred bank employee or a welfare recipient. In both cases, the researchers told the receptionists that they had either no health problems or that they had diabetes or low back pain. The pseudo-bank workers were able to secure an appointment 23 percent of the time, compared with 14 percent for the lower-status pseudo-welfare recipient – 50 percent better odds of getting in for the higher status caller.

“This impairs access to primary care, and we don’t think this is acceptable,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, a physician with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto in a statement.

The study was published online Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In a Feb. 27 article in the Toronto Star by Theresa Boyle, Hwang was quoted as saying, “The most likely explanation is that people working in doctors’ offices may be unconsciously biased against people of low socioeconomic status.” He added that it was the physicians’ staff that demonstrated a reluctance to schedule lower-status patients, not the physician. So it could have reflected staff bias, or could have been due to the physician providing direction to staff on new patient acceptance, Hwang said.

“I’ve always been struck by the fact that many of my patients who are marginalized say that they have been treated poorly by health-care providers in the past, simply because of their position in society,” Hwang said in the article.

I’m posting this news on a Canadian study to cultivate more empathy for what happens to people lower on the socioeconomic ladder in the United States, where the reimbursements for their care is almost always lower than for wealthier patients given the hodgepodge of medical coverage options.  I’ve heard first-hand peoples’ reluctance to schedule a visit to a doctor, because they fear being treated disrespectfully.

TAKEAWAY: This study is a wake-up call for doctors (and patients) to remain vigilant for hidden biases – which compromises treatment.

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Boyle, Theresa. “Doctors appear more likely to take on wealthier patients, study finds,” Toronto Star, Feb. 27, 2013.

 

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Health, Health disparities

Poor housing endangers health

by Suzanne Bohan
February 27, 2013

IMG_1197_1We had to laugh when we saw this offering on a mountain roadway in the Klamath Mountains in Del Norte County in Northern California. I was with Melissa Darnell, a community organizer working with a major privately-funded initiative to vastly improve the health of county residents over a decade.

This one is a serious fixer-upper that’s probably beyond a cost-effective restoration, but it’s emblematic. A couple of days earlier we’d visited a woman in another Del Norte community with major decay in the doublewide mobile home where she and her family lived. Holes in the floor were covered with plywood, and the home had other obvious signs of major damage.

Many live in mobile homes in the region. For that reason and others, unsafe, unhealthy housing is a significant issue. Annual rainfall is around 75 inches, and mold and fungi – both asthma triggers – grow readily in leaky homes.

In Del Norte County:

  • 26.8% of low-income residents report mold in the home1
  • 45% of children reported suffering an asthma attack2
  • 35.7% of adults reported suffering an asthma attack3

Another challenge in the region is there’s no homeless shelter for displaced individuals or families in this cold, wet climate, in part because of strong community resistance.

The initiative that Darnell is working for is on a quest to raise the health of Del Norte residents, especially children, by improving myriad social and living conditions. And housing is among them.

Among the solutions:

  • Creating a housing collaboration among public, private and nonprofit entities to offer financial literacy, credit counseling, pooling of resources and the assessment of policies that hinder home ownership.
  • Strengthening or developing offerings for home health assessments.
  • Promoting understanding about homelessness and alleviating fears about sheltering homeless families, with the aim of establishing a temporary shelter during inclement weather.

TAKEAWAY: Costly and common illnesses such as asthma are strongly linked to substandard housing.

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  1. California Center for Rural Policy; “Rural Poverty and its Health Impacts: A Look at Poverty in the Redwood Coast Region.” Rural Health Information Survey, 2006
  2. California Department of Public Health; “Asthma in Children and Adolescents in California Counties, 2003”
  3. California Department of Public Health; “Asthma in Adults in California Counties, 2003”
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Health, Health disparities

Hmong garden quickly thrives in Crescent City

by Suzanne Bohan
February 26, 2013

 

A one-acre garden in Crescent City tended by the local Hmong residents.

A one-acre garden in Crescent City tended by the local Hmong residents.

This garden was a delightful site in Crescent City in Del Norte County, especially when the back story emerged. In the spring of 2011, it was an empty one-acre lot. But someone lent the land so the small Hmong population in Crescent City could grow a community garden they’d long wanted. About 600 Hmong live in Crescent City.

Several months later it was a thriving oasis.

Another view of the garden.

Another view of the garden.

All it took was the land along with some supplies and a new fence, and the Hmong residents took over. By August it was yielding plants important to Hmong culture for foods and medicinal uses. A local company, the Hambro Group, lent the land and provided water and fertilizer, and the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative covered other costs, such as the fence.

The gardeners planted mustard, cilantro, cabbage, beets, corn and much more on 24 plots. They also grew many medicinal plants, such as those used to help women regain energy after delivering a child. 1

It was a wonderful example of giving people the resources, and they’ll quickly take the initiative to create something outstanding.  And given the difficult history of the Hmong, this kind of asset creates one more element around which to form a real community. Since August 2012, when I took these photos, the garden relocated to another lot, and I’m told it was tilled and planted just as quickly. I’m waiting for photos to the new site to add to this post.

The Hmong, who aided American forces during the Vietnam War, paid a high price. Many died, and when the war ended the survivors and their families were driven from their homes in the Laotian mountain villages into Thai refugee camps. There they often waited years to immigrate, with most yearning to come to America.2

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1. Atherton, Kelley. “Growing their Greens,” Sept. 30, 2011. The Triplicate.
www.triplicate.com/News/Local-News/Growing-their-greens

2. Magagnini, Stephen. “Special Report: The Forgotten People.” Sept. 12, 2004, Sacramento Bee.

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Health, Health disparities

Youth outlooks brighten in Del Norte County

by Suzanne Bohan
February 26, 2013
Makenzy Williams inside the Youth News Network studio in Crescent City. The program changes her thinking about the challenged community.

Makenzy Williams inside the Youth News Network studio in Crescent City. The program changes her thinking about the challenged community.

Makenzy Williams, 17, felt like many youth in scenic but economically depressed Del Norte County.

“I wanted to get out and stay out,” she said of the Northern California county, which includes Crescent City.

The Triplicate, the local paper, even recently mentioned the common sentiment. “. . . Del Norte youth carry a common motif of not liking Crescent City and wanting to move away — ASAP,” a July 30, 2012 article stated, quoting a camp counselor at a new youth leadership academy aimed at turning around that mindset.

The Klamath River flows through Del Norte County.

The Klamath River flows through Del Norte County.

Roosevelt Elk rest on a coastal bluff in Del Norte County.

Roosevelt elk rest on a coastal bluff in Del Norte County.

Del Norte, which borders Oregon, is stunning country. Pristine rivers crisscross the land, lakes abound, and its western edge faces the Pacific Ocean. It’s filled with towering redwood and fir forests, many of them now state and federal parks. The area draws many sports fishers as well as kayakers, campers, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

But job opportunities are now few — although several decades ago the once-thriving logging and fishing industries promised good-paying, lifetime work for able-bodied workers. Currently, a job at the unionized Safeway is among the better positions around, one local said.

“It is sad how much it lacks in opportunity for those who live here,” Makenzy wrote in a recent email. “There are a lot of extremely talented young people here, but they have no way to express it.”

Del Norte had been heading on a downward trend since the sharp decline in timber and fishing industry jobs — with youth fleeing and the economy struggling and along with its schools. Substance abuse is a major issue, and many disease rates are higher than average for California, as is depression. Unemployment is also above average.

The county leaders for years have worked hard to reverse the tide. So they were thrilled when they learned that the California Endowment, a Los Angeles nonprofit, decided to invite them to join an ambitious, 10-year, $1 billion initiative to transform ailing communities into ones headed toward a far better, healthier future. (The initiative is described in here.)

A poster describing the youth leadership and news training programs.

A poster describing the youth leadership and news training programs.

Cultivating youth leadership is essential to its success, as they’re the ones with the energy, enthusiasm and long-term stakes to push for lasting change. So the Endowment largely funded a two-week Y.O.U.T.H. Academy in Del Norte last summer, with contributions from several other organizations as well. And the Endowment fully funded the subsequent 8-week Youth News Network program, which taught youth news-production skills such as interviewing, videotaping and editing. Participants also earned an $800 stipend.

Teaching communication skills was a key goal of the news production training, in addition to instructing them in practical skills that could expand job options while creating also important stories about the community.

“If you can’t communicate effectively, you’re not part of the decision-making process,” said Ron Gastineau, a newly-elected city councilman in Crescent City who oversaw the youth leadership and news production programs. “That’s what happened to a lot of them. It opened up their eyes and increased their confidence.”

It changed Makenzy’s life, and did develop her confidence in taking a leadership role. “By the end of the summer, I found myself directing my group, making decisions, and seeing them come to me for guidance,” she said. “That is something I had never thought I’d be capable of doing, but I loved it.

“I also learned that nothing is impossible,” Makenzy said. “With work, and sometimes it can be a lot of work, anything can be accomplished.

Last summer, when I first met her while she was in the program, she also said, “It’s good to meet people who are serious about what they’re doing, people who want to make a difference in their community. I thought they just didn’t care.”

She’s not the only one inspired by the changes the initiative is bringing. Other youth expressed similar sentiments.

Makenzy has decided to pursue a military career, and in June hopes to leave for the United States Air Force Academy. Part of her would like to stay, though, and help develop a youth center, something modeled after the acclaimed Youth Uprising center in Oakland which she visited during the summer program.

“I love Crescent City, I really do,” Makenzy said. “But I also think leaving and coming back is the best thing to do for myself, and perhaps I can bring back my new experiences and ideas to the community.”

TAKEWAY: In economically distressed areas, quality youth leadership training is key to creating a new future.

Health, Health disparities

Health disparities – and solutions – examined in depth

by Suzanne Bohan
February 26, 2013

In June 2012, I embarked on research to examine the wide disparities in health and longevity between neighborhoods just miles apart. It’s not unusual, especially in urban areas, to find that people living 10 or so miles from each other will have up to a 20-year gap in life expectancy.

I reported on this topic as a science and health writer with the Bay Area News Group (Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News and Oakland Tribune) including this four-part series called “Shortened Lives.”

And poorer communities are on the losing end of this gap, coping for with more heart disease, diabetes, cancer, asthma and other diseases, as well as mental challenges. Deprivation and stress account for much of the disease burden. And the term “deprivation” covers a lot of issues – lack of access to good food and safe places to exercise, limited job and educational opportunities, lacking a feeling of security in one’s neighborhood and financial strain, to name a few.

But my research goes far beyond just examining this crisis. It’s focusing on what’s being done to shrink this gap. The problem is well known, but what far fewer know about are promising interventions that are making a difference.

Many advocates rightly point to this wide gap in health and life span as unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement, as it largely affects blacks and Hispanics in the United States. (But not exclusively: Poor whites in the United States, largely in rural areas, also suffers similar gaps compared to wealthier whites.)

I’ll be examining a few major initiatives around the nation, especially the largest privately-funded one run by the California Endowment. It’s called “Building Healthy Communities,” and I spent much of the summer reporting on it. This current crop of blog posts come from that reporting. Rather than explaining the healthy communities’ campaign with each post, I’ll summarize it here and provide a link in all blog posts that reference it.

It came about because Dr. Robert Ross, the CEO of the California Endowment, grew disillusioned with the limits of what medicine could heal after working in a Camden, NJ community clinic as the crack epidemic broke out in the early 1980s. He realized his Ivy League medical education hadn’t given him the tools to deal with healing the social ills that create so many medical emergencies and chronic sicknesses. So he turned his attention to healing communities, not just individual patients. From that pivot in his career, the Endowment’s “Building Healthy Communities” initiative was ultimately born.

The California Endowment is the state’s largest private foundation, with some $3.7 billion in assets. In 2010, Ross and the board of directors launched the “Building Healthy Communities” campaign, and committed most of the organization’s grantmaking to it – $1 billion over 10 years. The nonprofit thoroughly researched the most distressed communities in the state, and found ones with the organizing strength and resiliency to create a better future – with some outside assistance. In exchange for hard work and inspired thinking on the part of the 14 communities, the Endowment committed to leaving them on a trajectory toward far better health and well-being, especially for the community’s children, when the initiative winds down in 2020.

These are the 14 communities participating in the campaign: Del Norte County, a rural area on the Oregon border; neighborhoods in Sacramento, Oakland, Richmond, Long Beach, Santa Ana and San Diego, near the Mexican border; two in Los Angeles – South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights; five rural or semi-rural communities – Salinas, Coachella Valley, South Kern, Fresno and Merced.

The initiative is deploying the best strategies known to bring about social change at the community-wide level, based upon examining several decades of successes and failures. In short, it rests on local leaders and community-based organizations engaging residents and local politicians to tackle major challenges stymieing progress and growth in the area. It’s all about organization, community enthusiasm, rigorous research and measuring results along the way. The initiative is strongly focused on improving schools, because health is so strongly linked to educational status and the critical thinking that education instills. And prevention is the mantra, as it’s so much more cost-effective and humane than coping with illnesses after they emerge.

And the campaign works with the nonprofits that the Endowment funds, meeting regularly and agreeing upon long-term outcomes to improve the community. The nonprofits still operate independently, but expand their mission to include the broader shared mission. The results can be exciting, as I describe in this post.

The initiative, however, goes beyond community level work by leaders, nonprofits and residents, as they alone don’t have the resources to completely turn things around – not after decades of deprivation. It takes broader policy changes and new  infrastructure to secure lasting change, and that can only come from regional, state or federal policy shifts.

To that end, the initiative also deploys a statewide team to educate citizens and lawmakers about important policy decisions in the works.

This is a thumbnail sketch, and you can find more information here. I can attest that there are inspiring and exciting developments underway in these communities, with scores of smart, dedicated people determined to create real change. And there are some fantastic stories that never made the press. Some of these blog posts aim to partially fill that gap.

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Health disparities

Police helicopter above high school elicits resigned shrugs

by Suzanne Bohan
February 25, 2013
A police helicopter hovers above a high school in South LA in late August. 2012.

A police helicopter hovers above a high school in South LA in late August. 2012.

In this photo, you’ll see a helicopter hovering in South Los Angeles, right above a high school. It’s an LA Police Department copter, and as I learned from some mothers sitting on the bleachers at a soccer field nearby, it’s not an unusual sight in South LA.

I was startled at it, but they just shrugged. Someone said there must have been gunfire at the high school, and it’s safer for police to intervene from overhead. It happens all the time, one of the women said.

So that’s part of life in South LA. In Beverly Hills, Santa Monica or Malibu, a police helicopter circling over a high school would surely make the newspapers and generate alarm. But, in a stark portrayal of the different worlds so nearby, there wasn’t a mention in a local daily and the people on the soccer field largely ignored it.

 

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