This community needs assessment will focus on the families of children in the El Monte School District. El Monte is located in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles, CA, which is part of Service Planning Area 3. The zip code of 91731 will be used to collect the data for this assessment. Data may also be collected from the surrounding areas including Rosemead, Baldwin park, Temple city, Arcadia and South El Monte, which are also in the san Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles, CA.The target population being evaluated for this assessment will be the families of students who attend the Dorris Dann Kids Campus after school program. The kids campus is an after school program which is dedicated to providing a healthy and active learning environment to all students and families of the El Monte School District. The program mainly serves the families of Durfee Elementary School in El Monte, CA.
The goals of this assessment are to identify food insecurity and associated risks and the access of healthy food of the children and families in the El Monte school district and surrounding areas.
The objectives are:
Determine if the target area is a food desert or food swamp.
Identify what existing services are offered to help low income families with their food security structure.
Parameters of Assessment
The Dorris Dann Kids Campus is located in El Monte, CA. It serves over 1,500 youth and their families per year. The campus encompasses an 1,800 square foot facility which was built in 2006 to serve the community by providing educational and enrichment services. It was later designated a Healthy Behaviors Learning Center in May 2012 through the Healthy Behaviors Initiative (HBI). The initiative helps communities by expanding learning programs which embed healthy eating, physical activity and food security into their program, making a positive difference in the lives of the students and families they serve. The kids campus provides additional educational and enrichment services through many programs including homework assistance, a walking club, computer education, gym sports, a community garden, and many others. Their goal is to encourage and prepare youth to succeed. In addition to the educational and enrichment services, the program offers an after school healthy meal program. Each month this program provides the students with a bag full of healthy breakfast foods which are provided through donations.
The purpose of this assessment is to evaluate the communities access to affordable healthy foods and identify existing programs offered to the community that help decrease food insecurity and their associated risks. There will be two types of data collected, quantitative and qualitative. The data will be collected using primary sources by observation through service learning and interviews with the employees of the service learning site. Secondary sources will also be used to collect data. Data on food insecurity, obesity rates, income and poverty levels, existing programs, demographics of the target community and health status will be used to better understand the associated risks of reduced access to healthy food choices and food insecurity on the target population.
Pertinent Collected Data
The Dorris Dann Kids Campus serves the children and families of Durfee Elementary School in El Monte, CA which is located in The San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County. The students in the after school program all reside in low income households which are at or below the poverty level. The kids campus is located in El Monte, California. El Monte has a population of 113,475 people according to the 2010 census. The ethnic makeup this population is 65.7% are Hispanic, 28.7% are Asian, and 4.48% are White. There are 30,752 households comprised of an average household size of 4. The median household income between 2014 and 2015 has declined from $38,906 to $38,085 which is about $20,000 less than the average median income for Los Angeles County. In 2016 the percentage of residents in El Monte with an income below the poverty level was 28.1%. This is a substantially higher percent than the poverty level for all of California which is 19.6%. The rate of children in the El Monte area living below the poverty level is even higher at 31.9%.
According to a map posted by the USDA almost half of El Monte is considered both a food desert and a food swamp. A food desert is an area with less than acceptable access to healthy food choices such as fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods found in grocery stores. In a 2009 USDA study it was reported that low income zip codes had 25% fewer chain supermarkets than middle income zip codes. As a low income neighborhood, El Monte is highly affected by the lack of available resources to obtain healthy and high quality foods. Instead, a large number of liquor and convenience stores selling junk food and snacks providing processed, sugar and fat laden foods known to be contributors of a wide variety of health issues as well as obesity. Unfortunately traditional grocery stores are less accessible to the community than their counterpart, liquor and convenience stores which are easily accessible. There are 23 of these types of liquor stores in El Monte, much higher than the 7 located in the larger neighboring city of Arcadia. Arcadia is considered an upper middle class neighborhood and has 10 traditional grocery stores, while the city of El Monte only has seven. 18.3% of San Gabriel Valley residents are experiencing food insecurity as compared to the 21.8% of lower income households in California.
The lack of access to healthy foods and grocery stores along with the the rate of food insecurity and rising number of fast food restaurants is a significant contributing factor in the overweight and obesity rates in El Monte as well as other low income neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. This statistical analysis especially applies to children. The amount of children aged 2 to 17 who reported having eaten fast food two or more times in a week in California was 40.6%, with Los Angeles County being significantly higher at 47.2%. Overall, the poor health status of individuals living with food insecurity in California is much higher at 40.8% compared to those living without food insecurity at 25%. The supermarkets that are available in El Monte are the discount type stores such as Food for Less which traditionally do not offer the same full-service, healthy choices available at larger chains such as Ralphs or Vons and the healthy choices they do provide tend to be of a lower quality.
Food insecurity and low access to healthy foods contributes to many health risks including obesity. Consuming a high calorie, low nutrient rich diet contributes to weight gain and poor health. The affordable and much less healthy food choices being offered at convenience stores and fast food restaurants directly contribute to the rate of obesity and increasing health problems of children in low income neighborhoods. It was found in a study of 5th, 7th, and 9th grade students that 21% were overweight in Los Angeles County, which is much higher than the national average of 15%. From 2014 to 2015 the percent of 7th grade students in the El Monte school district who were overweight or obese increased from 42.5% to 45.9%.
Interpretation of Data
It it no myth that health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are on the rise throughout this country. This is especially true in lower income areas such as El Monte. Through the interpretation of the data collected a direct correlation can be made from residing in a food desert as a major contributor to these unhealthy habits, obesity and the associated health problems.
However, living in a food swamp often more significantly contributes to the risks associated with an unhealthy lifestyle. The availability and easy accessibility of these liquor, convenience stores and fast food restaurants are a large contributor to obesity rates. With obesity comes health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and high cholesterol which can lead to heart related problems. The data further suggests that food deserts are almost always food swamps, lacking in access to wholesome choices but providing an abundance of unhealthy opportunities. Even the few and far between low-end markets that may be available in these food deserts tend to have a lower quality among the options they do offer.
Living in a low income, high poverty area directly affects the cities population from birth. They grow up learning unhealthy habits and trying to break the cycle can be a daunting task. Helping to retrain the community begins with the children. Teaching them the benefits of developing healthy habits and introducing them to foods such as fruits, vegetable and whole grains they may not have available at home is a start. Further providing these communities with the resources they need and the ability to obtain healthy foods is one of the first steps in turning these statistics around. Programs such as the one at the Dorris Dann Kids Campus provides such an opportunity to begin the start of a healthier lifestyle and decrease health problems later in life.