Perfect opportunity in Visalia to learn about asthma! It’s Free!

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The Tulare County Asthma Coalition hosts the ‘Asthma Train the Trainer Program’ in Visalia on May 5.

What a huge opportunity to learn about asthma! Don’t miss out!

Free breakfast and lunch too! Registration (free) required. See the information below.

The American Lung Association just released on Wednesday the State of the Air rankings for 2012. Visalia is No. 2 for ozone pollution behind No. 1 Los Angeles-Long Beach. For Year-round particle pollution, Hanford-Corcoran is No. 2 and No. 4 is Visalia-Porterville. Fresno-Madera is No. 5. Hanford-Corcoran is No. 2 behind No. 1 Bakersfield-Delano. Poor air quality can cause an asthma attack.

If you live with someone with asthma or have it yourself, empower yourself with this amazing and free event presented by the Tulare County Asthma Coalition.

  • Gather asthma educational materials: Asthma statistics and What is Asthma?
  • Demonstrate skill proficiency with spacers and peak flow meters
  • Explanation on asthma triggers and trigger reduction strategies
  • Describe the use of asthma medications
  • Explanation of the Asthma Action Plan

Registration at 8 a.m. and the program ends at about 1:30 p.m.

Registration required: RSVP by May 1 to Christine Foster at chris.foster@sjvc.edu

Presenters: June Sexton, Secretary of the Tulare County Asthma Coalition and a retired Physical Therapist

Christine Foster, Treasurer of the Tulare County Asthma Coalition and a registered Repiratory Therapist

Jennine Roden, Chair of the Tulare County Asthma Coalition and a Tobacco Prevention Educator

Where: San Joaquin Valley College Auditorium at 8400 West Mineral King Avenue in Visalia, CA 93291

L.A. River: a meandering concrete jungle

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What a field trip!

The concretized Los Angeles River helps control rain water.

Who knew about the complexities associated with the Los Angeles River? Admittedly, I didn’t. Neither did several of the 20-plus Fellows in the California Health Journalism Fellowship who toured the concretized L.A. River yesterday.

The proposal is to bring back the river and all it’s beauty, meaning remove the concrete. Producers for the TV Cop shows will have to find another place to film.

Is it even possible to remove the tons of concrete built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that helps control rain water from the L.A. River? Yes! says Jenny Price, our recent cross-country traveling tour guide, author, and Los Angeles Urban Ranger. She’s armed with an artist’s rendering of the proposal. And the park-like setting looks great!

Click to hear Jenny Price talk about the L.A. River:

'I'm ready for my close-up,' for photographer Anabell Romero and several of the Fellows.

 

Read the excerpt below from The Huffington Post, who interviewed Price in 2010. 

 

And check out these photos taken throughout the day.

 
 
 
 

Allie Hostler, of the Two Rivers Tribune in Hoopla, Calif., near the L.A. River.

How would Angelenos’ daily lives be changed if the revitalization efforts (clean, green, and get rid of some concrete) actually happened?

“A lot of ways. If we’re relying more on local water supplies, our water is going to be a lot cheaper. We wouldn’t drink water directly out of the river, but we’d be able to rely more on our own stuff. Right now, we’re moving most of our storm water to the ocean. If we capture that storm water and it goes down to the aquifer, then we have the option of pulling it back up and cleaning it. This is a lot cheaper than bringing it 450 miles from the Delta. Just the city of LA pays $1 billion a year to import 200 billion gallons of water, and that’s 20% of the energy use for the city.” Jenny Price.

 

Click here //www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/hidden-la-river-tour-with_n_653268.html#s116693&title=Meeting_Place_LA to read the entire interview.

Today, we heard from journalist Joy Horowitz, Beate Ritz, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Chair, Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, on ‘Unseen Hazards: Reporting on Environmental Health in California, a presentation on Housing and ‘Community Health: California’s Foreclosure Crisis’ by Sanjay Basu, M.D., Ph.D., a physician, UC San Francisco, blogger, EpiAnalysis, and the Environmental Health Editor at New America Media, Ngoc Nguyen.

We closed the day with an Editor/Fellow/Senior Fellow Breakout Session.

Tonight was a fabulous dinner at McKay’s Restaurant.

 

Walkin’ In LA!

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Ruxandra Guidi and Farida Jhabvala Romero lead the pack of Fellows to USC today.

In the second seminar of the California Health Journalism Fellowship, we are at the prestigious University of Southern California, specifically the Ronald Tutor Campus Center, located near the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. The Fellowships are sponsored by the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships.

Journalists in the seminar are exploring various health topics like the role that foreign-born or educated doctors play in the Central Valley, a project by Kellie Schmidt, a health reporter at the Bakersfield Californian.

Imperial Valley Press (El Centro) reporter Elizabeth Varin is researching mortality rates in Imperial County and the role played by socioeconomics and race.

For my project, I will examine how Latinos living in rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley are dealing with asthma. Latino children are more likely to develop asthma than any other minority group in California.

We’re currently taking notes from the presentation Erika Franklin Fowler, Ph.D. an assistant professor of Government at Wesleyan U, who is speaking about the importance of accuracy in the news.

Professor Fowler’s presentation, ‘Getting a Grip on Statistics: What’s Right & Wrong with Numbers in the News’ is an interesting talk that deals with accuracy writing and stats, especially when talking about health-related topics.

Professor Fowler talks stats with the Fellows at USC.

 

We’ll soon hear from Dr. Robert Garcia, J.D., the Executive Director & Counsel for The City Project, for his presentation, ’No Room to Run: Parks and Health in California’

 

 

 

 

Stephen Magagnini, of the Sacramento Bee, and other Fellows make their way along USC.

 

This afternoon, we’ll take a field to the Los Angeles River for the presentation ‘A City’s Beginnings and Future’

Lunch with the Tulare County Asthma Coalition

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Members of the Tulare County Asthma Coalition – the uncaped
crusaders for clean air of the south Valley – invited me to lunch at the Lifestyle
Center in Visalia on Tuesday.

After sharing information about the California Health Journalism Fellowship and my upcoming series on asthma in the San Joaquin Valley, I focused attention back to the members, the experts on the front lines with patients in their homes, at clinics, schools and hospitals. I knew it would be a learning experience.
 

Frances Molina, of the Family Health Care Network in Porterville, near Visalia, poses with my surprise gift.

Here’s a bit of what I learned from the coalition about asthma inhalers:

  • Many parents with school-aged
    children need more education on the use of inhalers.
  • Too many kids have just one inhaler, which is usually kept at
    the school. No backup inhaler at home for emergencies.
  • In some cases, the inhalers are mere samples issued by clinicians or doctors, and not a prescription-sized portion.

 

There will be more about the TCAC and its members in my series.

Here’s a stern reminder for the need of coalitions like TCAC: The
American Lung Association’s annual ranking for 2011. The cities with
the highest levels of year-round particle pollution:

1. Bakersfield-Delano

2. Los Angeles-Long Beach and Riverside

3. Hanford-Corcoran

  • Bakersfield, Delano, Hanford and Corcoran are in the south Valley.

Thank you June Sexton and all the members of the Tulare County Asthma Coalition for sharing and the invitation to talk about my project. 

Save the date: The 2012 Air Quality Conference at the
Radisson Hotel in Fresno on March 21. The coalition is working with
other groups for this year’s conference theme: Lawn Care, Landscaping
and Air Quality. The conference will explore strategies and
opportunities for reducing health risks, while growing a lawn care and
landscaping business.

EPA’s Jared Blumenfeld: The Englishman Who Went Near the Hills

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• This blog and ensuiing article was produced as a project for The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, a program of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Please also visit http://www.reportingonhealth.org/ for a wealth of info on health.

With Lumix in hand, Jared Blumenfeld picks up the pace to get away from a couple dogs in Orosi.

EPA Region 9 Director Jared Blumenfeld took a short stroll along Florida Street in Orosi on Thursday.

Blumenfeld was on the final leg of a 3-day tour of the Central Valley that started in Stockton on Tuesday and ended in Tulare County, specifically Seville, a small community near Orosi and seemingly just a few steps from the foothills.

Blumenfeld stood in the driveway of Orosi resident Berta Diaz, who spoke about the poor quality of water in the community. Several residents voiced their opinions in the hope that Blumenfeld would offer some sort of support about the on-going water issue. Later he heard even more testimony from community leaders and residents at Stone Corral Elementary School in Seville.

Throughout the day, he took snapshots with his Lumix camera, a collectable among photographers.

I spoke with Blumenfeld earlier in the day at Fresno State, where he heard students and faculty talk about small water systems in the San Joaquin Valley. Not down-playing the issue of safe drinking water and the intrusion of arsenic and nitrates, not in the least, I just had to ask Blumenfeld about air quality. What with this little disease called asthma.

There will be more to the interview as my project progresses.

People gather at the home of Berta Diaz, at left, to speak about water.

When you meet with people in rural California, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, the people really want to find out, first of all, what are the issues? Is my environment polluted? Tell me about my air, my water,” said Blumenfeld. “What we’re announcing in the Valley at the moment is $21 million that’s going to the Valley and southern California to take that old diesel engine out of a tractor, take it out of a locomotive, and replace it with a clean one.”

On the title: It’s a take on the 1995 movie with Hugh Grant, ‘The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.’. Blumenfeld is actually from France, but has a strong English accent.

Meet RAMP!

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Fellow card-carrying followers for clean air! Draw your attention to RAMP.

The Regional Asthma Management and Prevention initiative (RAMP), based in Oakland, is a wealth of information with a single goal: To bring awareness and education on asthma prevention.

  • In the quest to provide answers about the management of this chronic disease that each year disrupts the lives of millions, RAMP seeks to direct attention to four general areas: Clinical Care, Healthy Schools, Clean Environments and the need to Eliminate Inequities.

In my series on asthma, look for me to explore each of these topics.

For now, please visit http://www.rampasthma.org/ to learn more about asthma and what you can do to help. The RAMP website is an excellent resource that provides the latest  information about current policies and updates.

“Asthma, like many public health conditions, is a disease where we see a lot of disparities based on race ethnicities. And while there is no single reason for these disparities, they are certainly in part due to larger inequalities in our society,” said Anne Kelsey Lamb, Director of RAMP.

Focus on asthma in the Central San Joaquin Valley

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The number of Latinos diagnosed with asthma is now greater than any other minority group in California. Many of the 1.4 million people suffering with this chronic disease are young Latinos who live in rural, farmworking communities. Usually these families working for low pay and poor living conditions are not thinking about the quality of air.

The reality is that these families are living in smog-polluted communities often engulfed in poor air quality. Smog from particulate matter, diesel engines, cars, pesticides add to the mixture of bad air that can lead to asthma attacks, the constricting of air ways.

Treatment is available through medication and inhalers, but the disparity in health care remains a constant road block. Families living near cities are more likely to receive regular health care visits to a doctor, while residents in rural communities often rely on clinics and pharmacists for advice. And the visits to clinics are occasional. The recent lack of rain in the Valley, which decreases the amount of particulate matter, has resulted in numerous, consecutive days of poor air quality.

I was recently accepted as a Fellow to the California Health Journalism Fellowship by the University of Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The California Health Journalism Fellowship receives funding from the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. My goal is to produce a series of in-depth stories and a multimedia presentation on the disparity of health care and how Latino families living in these areas cope with the various causes and effects generated from asthma.

In November, I had the pleasure of attending the first-of-two Fellowship sessions in southern California. I was among 21 Fellows at the session hearing testimony from leading journalists such as Michael J. Berens, of The Seattle Times, Sandy Kleffman and Suzanne Bohan, both lead journalists at the Contra Costa Times, who cover health-related topics. Check out the links to their stories below.

We also heard from Anthony Iton, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., the senior vice president for healthy communities at The California Endowment and a former chief health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department

In January, I will begin my research on families living with asthma. Through this blog, I will share the information about resources, provide updates on public policies, and post information about upcoming stories to be published in Vida en el Valle. Every contact person is welcome in this sharing of information.

I will also post a blog at http://www.reportingonhealth.org/

Click on the links below to see stories on health coverage that are alarming, riveting, intriguiing, enlightening and motivational.

East Bay ZIP codes lacking middle-class amenities have higher rates of asthma, heart disease and cancer by Sandy Kleffman and Suzanne Bohan: http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_13919582

Hundreds of adult homes conceal abuse, neglect by Michael Berens: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seniorsforsale/2012873613_seniors13m.html