The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

3305.1: Monday, November 11, 2002 - 5:10 PM

Abstract #49318

South Bronx Environmental Justice Partnership

A.H. Strelnick, MD, Institute for Community and Collaborative Health/Department of Family Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 3544 Jerome Avenue, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10467, 718-920-4678, Hstrelni@montefiore.org

This paper will discuss the programs that resulted from the partnerships with various community, city and state organizations in dealing with issues related to asthma prevention. The goal of the South Bronx Environmental Justice Partnership (SBEJP) is to improve the health of the people who live and work in the South Bronx, beginning with children and pregnant women and expanding to other adults. The Partnership is a collaboration among three founding organizations (the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition (SBCAC), Montefiore Medical Center (MMC), and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM)) and also includes other community organizations and interested residents and clinicians. The Partnership's goals include: developing a community-driven, participatory, environmental health research agenda in the South Bronx informed by on-going dialogue with its scientific and clinical experts; develop a similar environmental health educational agenda for both community residents and health professionals; and planning and implementing environmental health clinical and public health services. These programs address several issues such as, air toxic monitoring, the opposition of the construction of fossil-fuel burning power plants in New York City, and assisting in the organization of local opposition to the air emissions permit for the New York Organic Fertilizer Company, a sludge pelletization plant located in the South Bronx. SBEJP was one of the environmental organizations that hosted EPA Administrator, Gov. Christie Whitman, for the Clean Air Communities Project at the Hunts Point Terminal Market, which has installed technologies that permit refrigeration trucks to keep their produce cold without idling their diesel engines.

Learning Objectives: Objectives

Keywords: Environmental Justice, Asthma

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Environmental Justice: Partnerships Between Health Professionals and Communities for Asthma Education

The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA