Grants To Promote Healthy Eating, Combat Childhood Obesity Paying Off
One of Kaiser Permanente's Healthy Eating Active Living grants went to Venture's west side to promote better living.
Ventura County Star:
3 Years Later, Kaiser Grant Shows HEALing Powers
Three years and $1 million later, Ventura’s west side has visible results of a Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living grant, according to people involved with the project. In 2013, Kaiser HEAL grants were awarded to six specific areas in cities around California that had been identified as having high childhood obesity rates. One of the grants went to the Ventura Avenue area, and ran from 2013 to 2016. A more recent grant of $150,000 from Kaiser Permanente is being used by the HEAL Partners for a referral program with the West Ventura Medical Clinic and Community Memorial Hospital Centers for Family Health. Health professionals are being encouraged to “prescribe” programs that promote healthy activities to children at risk for childhood obesity. (Kallas, 8/9)
In other news from across the state —
KPCC:
New Farmers Market Tackles South LA's 'Food Deserts' At A Local Hospital
A farmers market opening Wednesday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in the Willowbrook neighborhood of South Los Angeles is the first in the county to open on a hospital campus. ...The hospital serves over a million people in an area with the highest death rate related to diabetes in the county. (Dugdale, 8/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
SF Gets Federal Lot On Mission, To Build Units For Formerly Homeless
A surface parking lot behind the federal courthouse at Seventh and Mission streets in San Francisco will become the site of the city’s largest housing development for formerly homeless people, thanks to a deal struck this week between city officials and the federal government. The city will lease the parking lot for three years while it pulls together the funding and irons out construction logistics for the development, which will house 250 units in two separate buildings. (Fracassa, 8/9)
KPCC:
Already Dealing With Chromium 6, Some In Paramount Oppose Medical Waste Facility
Already rattled by high levels of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium in their city, residents of Paramount on Wednesday evening implored regional air regulators not to permit a local medical waste treatment plant to expand its operations to seven days a week. ...But officials with the South Coast Air Quality Management District said the facility complies with the agency’s rules and regulations, and the president of the company that runs the plant said it won't add to Paramount's pollution. (Plevin, 8/10)
KPCC:
Air Filters Aren't A Cure-All For Those Living Near SoCal Freeways, Experts Say
Air quality experts have long maintained that living close to a highway can be bad for your health. In Southern California where space is limited, however, hundreds of thousands of people live within a quarter mile of a freeway. (Cross and Martínez, 8/9)