Identifying the health and safety hazards of street mobile food vendors

1. Behind the smiles...Identifying the health and safety
hazards of street mobile food vendors
Karen Calderon, M.A., Political Science SDSU
Jessica Vu, B.S. ,B.S., Public Health and Human Biology UCSD
In partnership with the Employee Rights Center (ERC)

2. Background
• Informal Economy
• Criminalization
• Community Controversy
Examples of Mobile Street Food Vendor Food

3. Objectives
• Learn more about street
mobile food vendors
• Involve involve them in the
street food movement
• Identify and respond to H&S
issues
• Ultimate goal: Legalization of
all mobile food vending in City
Heights

4. Methods
• Mixed methods (qualitative
and quantitative)
•Surveys
•In-depth interviews
•Focus Groups

5. General Results
● 48 interviews
○ 74 % paleteros
○ 26% food vendors
● 2 focus groups
○ 7 participants
● Demographics
Sites: schools, parks, alleys, small businesses, ERC

6. Psychological Hazards
Poor living conditions
“What is the cause of the stress/pressure?”

7. Workplace Violence

8. Physical Hazards
As one paletero describes it:
“Caminamos 10 o hasta 15 millas… y luego
puchando el carrito cargado de paletas todo el dia.
Pues como no te va doler el cuerpo?”

9. Physical and Environmental
Hazards
•Climate
•dehydration
•fatigue
•heat-strokes
•Burns
•Frost-burns
•Stove burns
Paletero showing his frost-burn scar
from handling the ice-cream.

10. Give Back Project
Example of Dry-fit shirt
For Workers: For the ERC and the public:

11. Business Survey Results
•11 participants (all small business owners)
•Most agreed (~90%) that street vendors should be legalized
•Focused on public health safety issues as well as economic issues

12. Successes:
•Increase the number of
participants
•Earn their trust
•Extended help to worker’s
families
•Gathered multiple points
of views on the same issue
Challenges:
•Finding participants
•Explaining to the
workers that we did not
have an immediate
solution
•Language barrier
Challenges and Successes

13. Recommendations
•Expand on the preliminary business surveys
•Keep contact with street vendors
•When collecting data, make a distinction between
paleteros and mobile street food vendors
•When hiring future interns, it would be more
beneficial to have at least two spanish-speaking
interns.

14. Karen and
Jessica’s
Reflections

15. Acknowledgement
sThank You to:
• NIOSH
• The California
Wellness Foundation
• OHIP
• ERC
• Alor Calderon
• Adriana Huerta-Reyes
• Brenda Diaz
• Peter Zschiesche
• Laura Yamaguchi
• Parke Troutman
• All of the street food
vendors!
ERC Team
Paletero