224167 Community pedestrian safety workshops in California

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Rhianna JoIris Babka, MSW MPH , SafeTREC, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Jill F. Cooper, MSW , SafeTREC, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Wendy Alfsen , California WALKS, Berkeley, CA
Marilyn Sabin , SafeTREC, UC Berkeley, Sacramento, CA
  
Background: Over the past 40 years, there has been a steady decline in walking and a concurrent rise in chronic diseases. Public health professionals have responded to this issue by promoting programs, planning and policies that encourage walkable communities and increased walking. However, since 4,378 people each year are killed and 69,000 are seriously injured, are we trading one public health problem for another when promoting walking, rather than safe walking?

UC Berkeley SafeTREC and California WALKS have partnered to conduct twelve Community Pedestrian Safety Trainings (CPST) throughout California. The purpose of the CPST is to help make it safer and more pleasant to walk in one's communities by providing community members with tools to advocate to planners, engineers, public health and elected officials.

Methodology: Researchers are using statewide crash data to identify and map pedestrian high-risk locations and “hot spots”. The training curriculum is modeled after the FHWA's “How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan” and “A Resident's Guide to Creating Safe and Walkable Communities.”

Results: To date, there have been over 250 persons trained with 96% gaining a new knowledge of pedestrian safety best practices and 98% obtaining new skills to move forward to actualize pedestrian safety improvements. Participants stated that “if we work together we can make the community safer”, and “I have the power to make a change”.

Conclusions: Conclusions from the trainings will be presented as a series of case studies of the community need, process, and outcomes from the trainings.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Other professions or practice related to public health

Learning Objectives:
1. Demonstrate elements of conducting a community-based pedestrian training 2. Analyze evaluation results of trainings. 3. Discuss lessons learned and understanding local challenges when conducting community-based pedestrian trainings. 4. Identify how to start a training program in other communities.

Keywords: Community Health Planning, Injury Prevention

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to present because I have a MSW/MPH and coordinate and facilitate all aspects of the community pedestrian safety trainings.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

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.

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