The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #63864

Julia Chiu-Chen Liou, Asian Health Services, Asian Health Services, 818 Webster Street, Oakland, CA 94607, 510-986-6830 ext. 267, julialiou2@hotmail.com

Oakland Chinatown has the highest number of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle collisions in the City of Oakland. The City of Oakland as a whole already has about twice the state average of pedestrian injuries. Located at the crossroads of major state highways entering the downtown district. Oakland’s historic Chinatown community bears an unjust transportation burden. As a consequence, this low-income community of Asian immigrants and seniors suffers from extraordinarily high pedestrian injuries and fatalities. In response, Asian Health Services, a local community health center, embarked on a local grassroots pedestrian safety campaign to decrease the number of pedestrian injuries and fatalities among Chinatown community members. Forming a coalition with the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, the Oakland Police Department, the City of Oakland, and other local community based organizations, AHS worked with these groups to advocate for the rights of low-income immigrant residents in Chinatown to live in a safe community, and helped to transform dangerous intersections into safer ones for Chinatown pedestrians. The campaign has resulted in: 1) implementation of unique four-way street crossing to protect pedestrians from cars, 2) a heightened awareness of pedestrian safety issues through a broad community education campaign, and 3) creation of a community mural by local API youth dedicated to Chinatown pedestrians who were killed by cars. This presentation will focus on the successful strategies of this grassroots campaign, and the challenges faced in coalition building and in heightening awareness of an issue that was long ignored in order to elicit policy change.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the participant(s) in this session will be able to:
• Articulate the process by which a community grassroots campaign is developed.
• Identify key principles in creating an effective community-based coalition that can serve as the vehicle by which private, public, and non-profit groups can articulate a broad set of concerns.
• Create a public-involvement process that engages minority and low-income communities
• Recognize the factors that link the health of a community to the design of a community.

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.