A presentation on the built environment and social determinants of health as seen during a year-long reporting project in 2011 by California Endowment fellow Beatrice Motamedi with students at Castlemont High School in East Oakland. This presentation was given at the JEA Northern California student journalism conference in 2011.
1. Does place matter? Connecting community
to your (teen) health
Beatrice Motamedi
Journalism teacher/adviser, The Urban School of San Francisco
Journalism Education Association/Northern California, 2011 State Convention
October 2011
Friday, October 14, 11
2. background and (brief!) bio
⢠reporter, writer, editor; 12 years with WebMD, Health, Parenting, Hippocrates,
Time Inc. Health
⢠became a high school teacher in 2004
⢠journalism adviser at The Urban School of San Francisco; co-direct
Newsroom by the Bay @ Stanford
⢠teach journalism part-time, practice journalism part-time
⢠California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship, 2011/Oakland Tribune
Friday, October 14, 11
3. Growing up in Oakland: the long arm of
childhood
Three-part series published in the Oakland Tribune, May 31, June 1 and June 2, 2011, by Beatrice Motamedi. A project for The California
Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, a program of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern
California. Photo of Torrance Hampton, 19, of East Oakland, by Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune.
Friday, October 14, 11
4. The series: the goals
⢠Stay in place â focus on
Castlemont campus (3 schools)
⢠Spend time â one full year, one
full cycle of change, growth
⢠Connect the dots â from
individual stories to the big
picture. How does trauma
weather teens?
Alizhey Black,15, student at East Oakland
School of the Arts. Photo by Esmerelda Argueta
Friday, October 14, 11
5. By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
lvorderbrueggen@
bayareanewsgroup.com
East Bay jails have beds but no
cash to take on the hundreds of in-
mates the state is expected to divert
to counties as California tries to
meet court-ordered prison popula-
tion reductions.
âCounties have been promised
money from the state before and
have not always received the money
as promised,â said Alameda County
SheriffGregAhern.âWearelooking
for full funding and constitutional
guarantees of continued funding.â
Sheriffs are âliterally meeting
every week with (Gov. Jerry Brown)
and his staff to make sure there is
going to be adequate funding to
absorb these prisoners into the lo-
cal jails,â said Contra Costa County
Sheriff David Livingston.
Last weekâs U.S. Supreme Court
decision launched Ahern and Liv-
ingston, who oversee a combined
6,700 jail beds, into the front line of
accelerated talks over how Califor-
nia will resolve its pernicious prison
overcrowding problem.
The justices ruled that the stateâs
glutted prisons constitute cruel and
unusual punishment.
Brown this year introduced
what he called ârealignment,â shift-
ing responsibility from the state to
counties starting July 1 to jail and
monitor low-level, nonviolent felons
to save the state money and to ease
prison overpopulation.
Counties could also receive some
offenders in state custody. The state
must shed 33,000 inmates over the
next two years in order to meet the
court ruling.
The Legislature adopted realign-
ment as part of the state budget.
But without highly disputed exten-
sions of the vehicle license fee and
sales tax, there will be no money to
implement it.
Without a constitutional guar-
antee of funding, the next Legisla-
ture faced with deďŹcits could raid
the realignment account and leave
counties paying for hundreds or
thousands of inmates.
Thatâsthestickingpointforsher-
iffs such as Livingston and Ahern.
Without money, they cannot
Counties brace for inmate influxEAST BAY SHERIFFS say jails have the space to take
in state prisoners, but they donât have the money
By Paul Burgarino
pburgarino@bayareanewsgroup.com
ANTIOCH â Shirley Mar-
chetti chatted with a probation
ofďŹcer in the courtyard of the
REACH Project center one after-
noon when she received a long-
awaited gift.
An 18-year-old Brentwood
man handed her a camouďŹage-
patterned T-shirt that read âBe
All That You Can Be: Be Drug
Free.â
âI think this is pretty much the
greatest gift ever,â Marchetti, 76,
told him, holding up the shirt to
see whether it would ďŹt.
Marchetti has worked to coun-
sel troubled teens in East Contra
Costa County since her oldest son
was offered drugs while a student
at Antioch Junior High School in
1968.
REACH Project Inc., co-
founded by Marchetti and then-
Antioch police Sgt. Leon LeRoy
Her reach
stretches
into lives
of youths
Antioch woman has
been using tough love
to ďŹght drugs for more
than four decades
HOMETOWN HERO
President Barack Obama
greets residents of Joplin,
Mo., during a visit Sunday
to the tornado-ravaged com-
munity. âI promise you your
country will be there with
you every single step of the
way,â he said as he pledged
federal aid to all storm-bat-
tered parts of the nation.
Pledge to help
Missouri town
IN MORNING REPORT
OVERFLOWING PRISONS
First of three parts
By Beatrice Motamedi
Correspondent
It was at the funeral of the
boy he wanted to graduate with
that Torrance Hampton ďŹnally
cracked.
Standing near the altar, he
thought hard about what to
say. Both seniors, Torrance and
Marquis Woolfolk had bonded
instantly in September, sharing
laughs and stories and hopes.
Both had survived wild times and
poor choices.
Now both were determined to
graduate.
For three months, they stayed
after school, working hard to
make up the classes theyâd
missed.
In fact, the Friday before
Thanksgiving, Torrance and
Marquis had traded high-ďŹves
after turning in assignments that
earned them three credits each
toward graduation.
âMan,â Marquis had said, âI
think weâre going make it.â
Two days later, he was one of
fourboysshotastheystoodonthe
porch of an East Oakland house.
The other two were treated at
Highland Hospital. Marquis died
in the ambulance.
OLDER THAN THEIR YEARS
GROWING UP IN OAKLAND
TUESDAY
Part Two: Weathering
adolescence â stressors
that jeopardize teen health.
Constant threat of violence makes teens
RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
Torrance Hampton, 19, lost his friend Marquis Woolfolk to violence when Marquis was shot and killed in November in East Oakland.
âI was happy to make 19 (years
old). ... Young black men like
me need some role models âŚ
because we donât ever know if
weâre going to make it through
to 20.â
â Torrance Hampton, Oakland resident
See HERO, Page 13
JOE RAEDLE/BLOOMBERG
See INFLUX, Page 13
TIMEOUT
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See THREAT, Page 13
Youth homicides
Teenagers, ages 13 to 18, killed in Oakland since 2001
2001 20062002 2003 2004 2005 2007 2008 2009 2010
27
12
16 15 16
10
6
1211
6
Source: Oakland UniďŹed School District BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
Day 1: the science of
teen stress
⢠The link between early exposure
to stress and adult health = the
long arm of childhood
⢠âYoung black men like me need
role models, someone to get me
through the next 5 years,
because we donât ever know if
weâre going to make it to 20.â
⢠âI would estimate that 100% of
our students are impacted by
violence in some way or form ....
Thereâs no way you can not be,
in our community.â
Friday, October 14, 11
6. BART SH0OTING
By Paul T. Rosynsky
prosynsky@bayareanewsgroup.com
OAKLAND â A year after fac-
ing a lifetime in prison for killing
an unarmed BART passenger,
former transit police OfďŹcer Jo-
hannes Mehserle
will be released
from jail in a cou-
ple of weeks.
With credits
for time served
and the leniency
of a Los Angeles
County judge,
Mehserle will be
set free after serv-
ing 11 months of
a two-year sentence issued after
the 29-year-old was found guilty
of involuntary manslaughter in
the killing of Hayward resident
Oscar Grant III.
Mehserleâs release from Los
Angeles County Menâs Central
Jail, most likely in the middle
Mehserle
will be
released
in weeks
Family of slain man
âtotally let downâ by
punishment given to
former transit ofďŹcer
GROWING UP IN OAKLAND
Second of three parts
By Beatrice Motamedi
Correspondent
I
tâs a Monday morning,
and Christina Cruz is al-
ready tired.
âIâm glad youâre here, be-
cause I need to talk about
this,â the 17-year-old tells a
visitor. âI stayed up all night
talking to my mom.â
Christinaâs mother is anx-
ious about Christina and her
twin, Catherine. Seniors at the
Castlemont Business and Infor-
mation Technology School, both
have failed the math portion of
the California High School Exit
Exam, or CAHSEE. Until they
pass, the graduation party that
their big Samoan family wants
to throw for them is on hold.
To graduate, seniors must
pass the exit exam, earn the
required number of credits
and present a senior research
project. An outgoing girl with a
big smile, Christina passed the
English portion of the exam but
missed math by 19 points.
âIf itâs not the CAHSEE, itâs
the credits. If itâs not the credits,
itâs the senior project,â Christina
says. â(My mother) thinks that
if I donât graduate, Iâm going to
give up, just like that. But Iâm
not.â
Interviews with and writ-
ings by nearly 100 students
at the Castlemont Campus of
Small Schools reveal three ma-
jor stressors jeopardize their
health: academic anxiety, lack of
healthy food and an environment
that limits their freedom and
imprisons them indoors. Even
Hazards to their health
Academic, nutritional, environmental stress combines,
creating health problems that can become hereditary
WEDNESDAY⢠PARTTHREE
Surviving and thriving: What works to make teens more resilient.
âThe Castle looks very peaceful and healthy. I would never feel
unsafe or at risk in the Castle. I wish it still was a castle.â
JANE TYSKA/STAFF
With a tough college-prep curriculum, Castlemont High School once was the neighborhood jewel. But like its East Oakland
neighborhood, which was hit especially hard by the crack epidemic of the 1980s, the school has fallen on hard times.
DEEBAYAVROM/STAFF
Gese Siaki, center, helps adjust the headband of Catherine
Cruz before going on stage for a Polynesian dance
performance May 19 at Castlemont High School.
Mehserle
By Mike Taugher
mtaugher@bayareanewsgroup.com
Customers of the East Bayâs
largest water utility are likely to
see their bills rise more than antici-
pated this summer and again next
year as the utility tries to combat
declining revenues and rising heath
care, pension and borrowing costs.
The East Bay Municipal Utility
District may adopt 6 percent rate
increase for this year and next â or
possibly lower rate increases â
when its board of directors meets
June 14.
If approved, the district that
serves 1.4 million East Bay resi-
dents would be on track by 2013 to
increase rates by one-third over
what they were two years ago. The
ďŹrst rate increases would go into ef-
fect July 1.
Some critics are not convinced
that the district has done every-
thing possible to keep rates down.
After all, other government
agencies that rely on taxes instead
of fees, which are much easier to
raise, have been forced to more
drastic measures.
âIt seems too easy for them to
simply pass it on to customers,â said
Mary Horton, a former mayor of Pi-
nole who has been voicing questions
about the plan. âIâm not necessarily
against the increase, but I think it
should be delayed until they make
their case.â
Two years ago, the district an-
ticipated that it would need to raise
rates by 5 percent this year and
next, but the board of directors de-
cided to pursue higher rates out of
concern that service levels would
decline and the districtâs credit rat-
ing might take a hit, which could in-
crease borrowing costs.
In order to keep rate increases
at 5 percent, the district would have
had to hold 50 jobs open as work-
EBMUDâS PROPOSAL calls for a 6 percent increase
in water charges this year â and another for 2012
Anger greets plan to raise rates
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SPORTS: NBA FINALS
LeBRON IN
LIMELIGHT
IN MORNING REPORT
President Barack Obama
introduces Army Gen. Martin
Dempsey during a news con-
ference Monday at the White
House. In nominating Dempsey
to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Obama lauded him as âone of
our nationâs most respected and
combat-tested generals.â
Obama taps
new leader for
Joint Chiefs
J. DAVID AKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
See WATER, Page 9
See MEHSERLE, Page 9
See HEALTH, Page 9
Day 2: typical teen
stressors
⢠The Cruz sisters and the Tongan
dance class; the graduation
trifecta; academic anxiety
⢠Poor diet: mayo, shreds of
lettuce and pickles â four liquor
stores bracket campus, but
soup machine = broken for 2
years
⢠Isolation: "Iâm not really a good
person to ask about the
neighborhood, because I donât
really go outside of my house once
I get home .... We hear a lot of
shooting all the time and everyone
in my community is divided.â
Friday, October 14, 11
7. To see a slide show of photos from Tuesdayâs verdict, go to InsideBayArea.com.
GROWING UP IN OAKLAND
Last of three parts
By Beatrice Motamedi
Correspondent
Itâs third period at Castlemont
Business and Information Tech-
nology School in East Oakland. A
visitor begins a discussion about
poverty, bad food and crime.
Tough times? Tough streets?
These high school students arenât
stressing.
Inthisclass,thevibeistothrive:
At a school where the dropout rate
is one in two, most
are ready to gradu-
ate. Gary Williams
Jr., senior class
president, has an
athletic scholarship
to the University of
San Francisco.
âTrying to get
good grades, play
basketball and get
ready for college can be really
stressful,â he says. âI handle my
stress by working out or going to
play basketball.â
Itâs a big contrast to ďŹrst pe-
riod, where students are tired and
worried.
âWhen I am expected to do
things, I get stressed,â admits se-
nior Alejandra Munoz.
Moses Nervis, a self-described
âbudding cartoonist,â has trou-
ble handling multiple demands:
â(S)chool, my cartoons and some
program my Mom got me in â itâs
too much.â
Tevita Lanivia canât wait to
move to Utah, where his sisters
live.
âYou would think that you
would be safe around (Oakland)
but death is around the side,â he
To thrive, resiliency is key
Surviving adversity
helps to make teens
stronger, and those
skills can be taught
âPop pop popthere go another young man shot âŚ
Follow your heart because this world is falling apart âŚ
Life in Oakland is a living hell.â
By Paul T. Rosynsky
prosynsky@bayareanewsgroup.com
OAKLAND â Asmerom Gebre-
selassie and his brother Tewodros
will spend the rest of their lives in
prison after a jury decided Tuesday
both successfully planned and car-
ried out the killings of their sister-in-
law, her mother and her brother on
Thanksgiving Day 2006.
After deliberating for about
seven days, the jury of 10 women and
two men found the Gebreselassie
brothers guilty of all 14 charges ďŹled
against them, including killing three
people, kidnapping a 2-year-old
nephew and attempting to kill one
other person.
Thejuryalsofoundthatbothwere
guilty of two special circumstance
crimes: killing multiple people and
killing during the course of a kidnap-
ping. As a result, the Gebreselassie
brothers will be sentenced in August
to life in prison without the possibil-
ity of parole.
âFor what they did, they deserve
this,â said Merhawi Mehari, who
witnessed the Gebreselassie broth-
ers gun down his sister, mother and
brother during a Thanksgiving Day
dinner. âIâm happy but I also have
loss. Itâs painful, I will never get my
family back.â
Asmerom Gebreselassie, 47, and
his brother Tewodros, 43, were ac-
cused of killing their sister-in-law,
Winta Mehari, 28, her mother,
Regbe Bahrengasi, 50, and her
brother, Yonas Mehari, 17, in what a
Brothers found guiltyof murder
Pair will spend rest of their lives in prison
for shooting three in Oakland apartment
GEBRESELASSIE SLAYING TRIAL
JANE TYSKA/STAFF
Kevnisha Harris, 15, a freshman at the Castlemont Campus of Small Schools, shows her
poems in East Oakland.The school, which is divided into several smaller schools, offers
services to help students deal with the stress of living in an urban environment.
By Peter Hegarty
phegarty@bayareanewsgroup.com
ALAMEDA â City ofďŹcials
are investigating why police and
ďŹreďŹghters remained on a beach
and watched as a 52-year-old man
stood in the surf and apparently
killed himself on Memorial Day.
The ofďŹcers and ďŹreďŹghters â
wholatersaidtheyarenottrained
in land-water rescue â remained
on the beach as a passer-by
waded into the water and pulled
the manâs body to shore after he
drowned.
âWe are absolutely going to do
an investigation,â Mayor Marie
Gilmore said. âAnd we are plan-
ning to do it in as transparent a
way as possible.â
Raymond Zack paced back
and forth along the shore for
several minutes before he waded
into the waves about 11:30 a.m. on
a stretch of Robert Crown Memo-
rial State Beach along Shoreline
Drive near Willow Street in Al-
ameda, witnesses said.
For nearly an hour, Zack stood
in the neck-deep water â some-
times raising his arms above the
surface â before he eventually
City asks
why man
allowed
to drown
Alameda ďŹreďŹghters,
police stood on beach
as man killed himself
LAURAA. ODA/STAFF
Yosef Mehari, brother and son of the victims, receives a hug
Tuesday after brothers Asmerom and Tewodros Gebreselassie
were found guilty of killing three people in 2006 in Oakland.The
Gebreselassies will spend their lives in prison without parole.
BEACH DEATH
ONLINE
To read
the other
parts of the
âGrowing Up
In Oaklandâ
series, go to
InsideBay-
Area.com.
ONLINE
LOCAL NEWS ⢠PAGE A3
The snowpack in the Sierra
is two to three times its normal
depth, thanks to a wet winter
and cool spring. But hot summer
weather could turn a gradual
thaw into ďŹooding.
Snow melt
could spell
trouble
See VERDICT, Page 15
See DROWNING, Page 15
See SOLUTIONS, Page 15
â Poem by Kevnisha Harris, 15, a freshman at the Castlemont Campus of Small Schools
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Day 3: resilience.
What works?
⢠âThe middle-class kids have already
learned that if you fail, the world is
not at an end .... Minority poor kids
really have some catching up to
do." (Len Syme)
⢠role models and mentors; outside
support (YU, clinic)
⢠control and agency, e.g.,
afterschool journalism, business
enterpreneurial program (B.U.I.L.D.)
Friday, October 14, 11
8. Now itâs your turn ... three essential questions
⢠Does a personâs health depend on access to healthcare, or lifestyle choices?
Whatâs more important: doctors, or diet?
⢠Which is more important: the choices you make, or the physical and social
environment in which you live? Diet, or homicide rate?
⢠Do you have social capital in your community? What do teens need, and does
your community give it to you/them? What gets more attention in your
community: the homicide rate or the high school dropout rate?
Friday, October 14, 11
9. Which of these places is healthier?
Friday, October 14, 11
10. Castlemont, then: East
Oakland High School, 1927 Photo courtesy of Oakland Tribune archives; also online at the Oakland
Public Library at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt009nc73h/?
layout=metadata&brand=oac4
Friday, October 14, 11
11. ⢠no government-sponsored health care; no welfare or food stamps
⢠no school nurses, no health classes, no peer ed
⢠leading causes of death: typhus, malaria, smallpox, measles
⢠U.S. life expectancy in 1927 was 62.0 years (white) and 48.2 years (black)
Sources: âTable 21. Estimated life expectancy at birth in years, by race and sex: Death-registration states, 1900â1928, and United States, 1929â2007,â
U.S. Life Tables at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_09.pdf; National Center for Health Statistics, at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm,
and âCauses of Death,â Vital Statistics of the U.S., Centers for Disease Control, at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortrates_1910-1920.pdf
Friday, October 14, 11
12. And now: Castlemont campus
of small schools, 2011
Photo by Jane Tyska/
Oakland Tribune
Friday, October 14, 11
14. photo by Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune
Main entrance, Castlemont Business and
Information Technology School
Friday, October 14, 11
15. Olive Street, May 26,
2011
Photo by Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune
Friday, October 14, 11
16. ⢠food stamps (1932); Medicare, Medicaid (1965); Obamacare (cross ďŹngers)
⢠Castlemont health clinic â most heavily used school clinic, 2 physicians + 6
mental health counselors, nearly 6,000 visits in 2007-2008 (latest available)
⢠leading causes of death: homicide, unintentional injury, suicide
⢠life expectancy as of 2006-2008 (latest available) was 81.4 years; the
difference between Asian American females and African American males = 20
years
Sources: Interview with Castlemont Clinic Director Su Park, April 2010; âHealth of Alameda County Cities and Places,â
Alameda County Department of Public Health, 2010
Friday, October 14, 11
17. When we think about health, we usually think about health care
and access to care and the quality of care.
But what research clearly shows is that health is embedded in the
larger conditions in which we live and work. So, the quality of
housing and the quality of neighborhood have dramatic effects on
health.
DAVID WILLIAMS, sociologist, Harvard School of Public Health
A new way of looking at public health
Friday, October 14, 11
18. Assessing health: four leading (teen) indicators
⢠The teen disease burden: asthma, Type 2 diabetes, obesity
⢠% of LBW (low-birthweight) births
⢠Quality of built environment: schools, parks, libraries, transportation, housing
⢠Hope
Friday, October 14, 11
19. Why asthma?
⢠âcanary in the coal mineâ â high asthma rates correlate with poor
environmental health, poor overall health, psychological stress (divorce)
⢠sharp racial/ethnic disparities - equity issue
⢠major factor in low attendance, poor school performance - relevant to you
⢠example of inďŹammatory and immune system disease - trend
Friday, October 14, 11
20. Asthma in Alameda County
Source: âHealth of Alameda County Cities and Places,â
Alameda County Department of Public Health, 2010
Friday, October 14, 11
23. Why low birthweight babies?
⢠another âcanaryâ: âAt the population level, the proportion of babies with a low
birth weight is an indicator of a multifaceted public-health problem that
includes long-term maternal malnutrition, ill health, hard work and poor health
care in pregnancy. On an individual basis, low birth weight is an important
predictor of newborn health and survival.â âWorld Health Organization
⢠link in utero to mental illness and learning disabilities: Dutch famine of 1944
and the Chinese famine of 1959 = higher rate of schizophrenia
⢠teen moms have a higher LBW rate than older moms - relevant to you
Friday, October 14, 11
26. LBW - teen moms, CA, all counties
Friday, October 14, 11
27. Assessing the built environment
âIt encompasses all buildings, spaces and products that are created, or modiďŹed,
by people. It includes homes, schools, workplaces, parks/recreation areas,
greenways, business areas and transportation systems. It extends overhead in
the form of electric transmission lines, underground in the form of waste
disposal sites and subway trains, and across the country in the form of
highways. It includes land-use planning and policies that impact our
communities in urban, rural and suburban areas.â
âObesity and the Built Environment,âNational Institutes of Health, 2004
request for proposals, http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/rfa-
es-04-003.html
Friday, October 14, 11
28. Breaking down the built environment
⢠Physical: farmersâ markets, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, liquor stores, safe
parks/empty lots, pedestrian friendliness, quality of housing stock (adequate
number of bedrooms for family size), bike lanes, condition of school buildings,
highways and toxic hazards, housing that either connects or isolates people
⢠Social: crime rates, youth activities and community centers, places of workship,
high school graduation rates, day and nighttime noise levels (affects stress, quality
of sleep), neighbors know and trust each other, quality/trust in community-police
relationship
⢠Economic: median household income, % of households in poverty, % of children in
poverty, % of high school grads, unemployment rate, % of residents spending 30%
or more on housing, per-pupil school investment
⢠Service: availability of transit, youth centers or clinics, childcare; banks vs. pawn
shops or check-cashing services; museums and libraries
Friday, October 14, 11
33. three troubling stats
for teens
⢠Dropout rates = 78.2% at
Leadership Preparatory High
School, 55.9% at Castlemont
Business and Information
Technology School and 43.2% at
the East Oakland School of the
Arts.
⢠An area of nearly 35 square miles
with 121,000 residents, 63,000 in
the so-called "Castlemont
Corridor," and 21,000 of them
teenagers, East Oakland does not
have a full-service supermarket.
⢠The stat kids suggested I use
Friday, October 14, 11
35. Why zip codes matter
âHealth Disparity by Zip Code,âfrom the Shortened Lives series by Suzanne Bohan and Sandy
Kleffman, Bay Area News Group, at http:www.insidebayarea.com/life-expectancy
Friday, October 14, 11
36. Hope, ďŹnally
⢠CDC/leading causes of death for adolescents (follow the greens)
⢠high school diploma correlates to lower asthma risk, lower diabetes rates,
higher life expectancy (in AlaCo, h.s. grad is < 70% = 5-year drop in life
expectancy)
⢠"Our view is that if these children had no hope for the future, what difference
would it make if they smoked or used drugs or missed school? We decided
to work on hope, to help these children see that they had a future." âLen
Syme, professor emeritus, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
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37. âCauses of Death,â Mortality Statistics, 1919,
Bureau of the Census
Leading causes of death, U.S.,1919
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39. Measuring hope: three suggestions
⢠get graduation/dropout rates & correlate to life expectancy
⢠devise your own âbroken windowâ index of your environment, e.g., teen-to-
park ratio, teen-to-liquor stores ratio, teen-to-bus stop ratio
⢠map and compare built environments (number of fast-food restaurants,
number of exercise ďŹelds or parks, number of blighted areas, number of
museums and libraries, etc.)
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40. Donât forget your local public health department
For a list of county
health departments,
click here
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41. what the AlaCo data showed
⢠Homicide, unintentional injury and suicide are leading causes/death for AlaCo
teens; homicide/injury = 2/3 of all teen deaths
⢠Only 1 in 5 AlaCo teens has the recommended daily serving of fruits/veggies,
compared with 1 in 2 adults; children aged 2-11 are âover twice as likelyâ to
consume the fruits/veggies they need. AlaCo has the fourth-highest % of kids
statewide who are overweight (29.1%)
⢠AlaCo adults who donât complete high school are twice as likely to have diabetes
than those with a h.s. diploma or higher
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42. Where we went today
⢠Bâs stories on reportingonhealth.org
⢠âUnnatural Causesâ
⢠âThe Health of Alameda County
Cities and Placesâ
⢠OfďŹce of Statewide Health Planning
& Development (OSHPD)
⢠California Department of Public
Health
⢠Bureau of the Census/American
Community Survey
⢠city-data.com
⢠zipskinny.com
⢠Centers for Disease Control
⢠National Center for Health Statistics
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43. Why place matters
Source: âLife and Death from Unnatural Causes: Health and Social Inequity in Alameda County,â Alameda
County Public Health Department, April 2008, at http://www.barhii.org/press/download/
unnatural_causes_report.pdf
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44. Brainstorming? Stumped? Stuck?
Please feel free to contact me:
Beatrice Motamedi
bmotamedi@urbanschool.org
bymotamedi@gmail.com
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