142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

298870
Empowering Seniors as Advocates for Healthy & Walkable Neighborhoods

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 3:30 PM - 3:50 PM

Tony Dang, BA , California WALKS, Oakland, CA
Wendy Alfsen, JD , California WALKS, Oakland, CA
Persons aged 61 and older made up 44% of all pedestrian and bicycle fatalities in the City of San Jose between 2007-2011. Responding to this dire senior pedestrian safety problem, California WALKS—in partnership with Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, AGEnts for Change, and the Coalition for Retired Americans (CARA)—initiated the citywide STEPS Coalition to improve pedestrian safety, particularly for seniors, children, and people with disabilities. 

In its first year, the Coalition provided a much-needed forum for information sharing between organizations working to secure local built environment improvements, as well as opportunities for seniors to learn from one another and strategize—securing local improvements, including extended crossing times, realignment of a bus stop to match a signalized marked crosswalk leading to a senior center to discourage jaywalking; and construction of an island at a channelized right-turn to lower the speed of right-turning cars. To avoid having to rehash the same issues at different locations, Coalition participants turned their attention to securing citywide policies and programs, resulting in the retiming of over 150 crosswalk signals at senior/community centers and senior housing locations across the city. Responding to this initial citywide success, the STEPS Coalition is now poised to pursue the citywide implementation of reduced speed Senior Zones.

This session will describe the history and accomplishments of the STEPS Coalition, how the Coalition has empowered seniors to become advocates for walkability, and lessons learned for how to replicate the STEPS Coalition model to advance community-driven transportation policies.

Learning Areas:

Advocacy for health and health education
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Explain the STEPS model for community-driven transportation and land-use policy advocacy. Describe lessons learned for simultaneously advancing a multi-level (local and citywide) community-based policy advocacy approach

Keyword(s): Advocacy, Transportation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Wendy Alfsen is the Executive Director of California Walks--a statewide nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to making communities healthier and safer through walking. She is a prominent member of the pedestrian safety community on local, state and national levels, serving on many advocacy collaboratives, as well as statewide and national committees, including the 6 Wins for Social Equity Network, State Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) Pedestrian Safety Committee, and Caltrans Active Transportation Livable Communities Advisory Group.
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.