Environmental Justice & Health Disparities

Healthy Schools Campaign’s approach to environmental health and wellness in schools includes a special focus on the role that school environments can play in combating health disparities and promoting environmental justice.

As rates of childhood asthma and obesity skyrocket around the country, children in Latino and African-American communities are especially vulnerable. A recent community-level study from Sinai Health System reveals that in Chicago’s predominantly Latino neighborhood of West Town, for example, approximately 73 percent of children are overweight or obese. This compares with a national average of 17 percent. In the face of these disparities, healthy school environments – those in which children have access to healthy food, opportunities to be physically active, chances to learn about healthy lifestyles and freedom from polluted indoor air that can trigger asthma attacks – are especially critical.

HSC works to empower parents and community members to bring about changes in school environmental health and wellness so that all children will have the opportunity to live healthy, successful lives. While this approach is integrated into all of HSC’s work, several initiatives focus directly on environmental justice and health disparities:

Partnership to Reduce Disparities in Asthma and Obesity in Latino Schools

The Partnership to Reduce Disparities in Asthma and Obesity in Latino Schools is a four-year NIEHS-funded project designed to address skyrocketing rates of asthma and obesity in two Chicago communities. At the project’s conclusion, more than 900 parents were involved and parent leaders were helping 46 schools serving 35,000 students establish wellness teams.

As one of the goals of the project was to learn how to create health-promoting change in large, urban school districts serving low-income communities of color, the project findings include valuable lessons for the public health community as well as for advocates, educators, parents and everyone who cares about children’s health at school.

To learn more and read the stories of individuals who changed their lives dramatically since becoming involved in the project, please click here.

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Parents United for Healthy Schools/Padres Unidos para Escuelas Saludables

Parents United for Healthy Schools/Padres Unidos para Escuelas Saludables (Parents United) is an HSC-led coalition of more than 40 parent and community organizations dedicated to bringing opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity to Chicago schools, particularly schools in Latino and African-American communities facing significant health disparities.

Parents United provides parents with the knowledge and skills they need to advocate for school and district environments that promote healthy eating and active lifestyles. Parents United educates parents on best practices and issues of nutrition and physical activity; trains parents on strategies for organizing effective school wellness teams; and provides ongoing support as parents lead these teams to make change in schools.

Since its formation, Parents United has advocated to shape the Chicago Public Schools wellness policy; has provided intensive training for more than 50 parent leaders; has taken more than 150 parents on a bus tour of three healthy schools; brings together parents to share ideas with principals and community leaders at an annual wellness breakfast; held a rally with more than 700 children, parents, and leaders; worked with state legislators to advocate for the reinstatement of recess for elementary students in Chicago; and continues to bring parent voices to the school wellness agenda.

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Austin Environmental Health and Justice Project

HSC works with parents in Austin, an African-American community in Chicago, as part of the Austin Environmental Health and Justice Project, a two-year EPA-funded initiative of HSC and COFI (Community Organizing and Family Issues) to educate parents, teachers, administrators, custodians, nurses and students about how the school environment affects their health. The project also builds a network of people at each school to address environmental health issues.

Parents and grandparents participating in the program explained that they decided to work on the project because of their concerns about the growing rates of asthma in the African-American community, and the health hazards that exist in older, deteriorating schools. The number of children suffering from asthma in many of Chicago’s African American communities is more than double the national average. In North Lawndale, for example, more than 23 percent of children suffer from asthma, compared to a national average of 12 percent.

Through the program, parents are creating effective strategies to make schools healthier places for all children.

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