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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing
5097.0: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 12:45 PM

Abstract #158488

Using a neighborhood school to anchor improvements in food and physical activity environments

David Kakishiba, East Bay Asian Youth Center, 2025 E. 12th Street, Oakland, CA 94606, 510-533-1092, ext. 25, junji@ebayc.org

Within high density urban communities served by a local school, the school site can become a community anchor for improving nutrition and physical activity among children. The HEAC collaborative in Oakland has involved stakeholders from multiple sectors to work together to change food and physical activity environments within Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. It has succeeded by centering its collective work on the neighborhood schools. The San Antonio neighborhood's community health initiative dedicated itself to transforming its local schools into healthy food and physical environments where children, youth, and families regularly: walk and bike to schools, parks, and commercial districts; engage in sports and physical activities at parks and schoolyards; and purchase and consume fresh foods. Since 2003, the community has secured $200,000 from the City of Oakland to install new countdown signal lights and curb bulb-outs at two intersections at Garfield Elementary School, and $1.1 million to construct a new soccer field, basketball court, and a children's play area at San Antonio Park; and it has installed a new bike cage and implemented a successful Bike-to-School campaign at Roosevelt Middle School. It has created new “after-school learning centers” providing 500 children after-school sports and physical activity opportunities four area schools, and completed schoolyard design plans for two. And it has launched Full Circle Farms, a micro food system providing affordable organic produce, nutrition education, and economic opportunities through the operation of a four-acre urban farm, school gardens, cooking classes, and school produce stands.

Learning Objectives:

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Featured Project Session: Healthy Eating, Active Communities: A Multi-sectoral Approach to Improving Food and Physical Activity Environments in Communities

The 135th APHA Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 3-7, 2007) of APHA