77% of South Los Angeles Students walked/bike/skated to school in past week
August 30, 2012 Leave a comment
The California Endowment (TCE) developed a 10 year plan called Building Healthy Communities (BHC) in which cities throughout the state participate in bettering the places where they and their children live, work, learn, and play. One of the communities funded as BHC effort is South Los Angeles. In order to understand the health of South Los Angeles, TCE asked hundreds of residents in the community to participate in the California Health Interview Survey.
This survey helps provide a snapshot of key findings in each neighborhood and can assist in mobilizing friends and neighbors to advocate for community change, secure greater resources, and guide community planning. The results are compared side-by-side to a larger survey throughout Los Angeles County and the state of California.
Interesting findings include:
- the percentage of adult obesity in South Los Angeles (39%) compared to the county and state (21%),
- amount of adults who ate fruits and/or vegetables three or more times per day in the last week (14%) compared to the county (23%) and state (24%),
- and the number of parks or playgrounds which are considered safe during the day (61%) compared to the county (87%) and the state (90%).
And a promising and insightful statistic is the number of children who walked, biked, or skateboarded home from school at least once in the last week (77%) compared to the county (49%) and the state (42%).
A big thanks to Mark Glassock at Community Health Councils who forwarded this report to us. As the City of Los Angeles endeavors to develop a Safe Routes to School Strategic Plan, using data to understand and prioritize areas is critical. Knowing that students in South LA are walking/biking/skating at significantly higher rates than county and state peers is further data to better understand and move conversations regarding streets safety and safe routes to school forward, and prioritization of efforts.
