Running Head: COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT

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Community Assessment
Alice Argueta
Community Nutrition 418- Winter Quarter 2015
California State University, Los Angeles

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East Hollywood Community Defined

In this community needs assessment the specific group within East Hollywood
community are the school aged students (age range 5-17) with single parent head of household
status families. There exists a relationship between the environment in which these students are
surrounded in and the incidence of poor nutrition related food choices.
Community Parameters
To gain internal knowledge on the students (ages 5-17) habits there is a need to gather
information about the environment. The purpose in setting the parameters for the East
Hollywood community is to collect data about the surrounding environment and the primary
influences that affect the students on a daily basis. This information is necessary to analyze the
the purchasing power of families, extent of aid from surrounding services and health status that
enable students to follow poor nutritionally sound lifestyles. Data collected includes information
on types of household status and size for the students in the East Hollywood neighborhood.
Other important data needed to assess is income status, community demographics, local aid
organizations, housing data and healthcare access. In order to find these factors mentioned
above, the data sources would be collected from community census profiles and county health
status profiles. This information is made available for public access from the United States
Census Bureau and Department of Public Health for the County of Los Angeles.

East Hollywood: Community Statistics and Health

East Hollywood district is the 90029 community nestled between Hollywood and Silver
Lake communities. The nearby bordering districts also include Little Armenia, Loz Feliz, Greater

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Wilshire district and Koreatown. According to United States Census Bureau, the General
Population Profile Data of 2010 (GPPD 2010) notes that East Hollywood (90029 zipcode) has
approximately a total population of 38,620. The community is considered by the Los Angeles
County Public Health Service to be the fourth Service Planning Area Boundary, also known as
the Metro area.
The East Hollywood community features lively and heavily traveled locations. Within a
five mile radius East Hollywood has one community college, three nearby healthcare medical
facilities (Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, The Childrens Hospital and
Hollywood Presbyterian), a Church of Scientology, Barnsdall Park and Lemon Grove Recreation
Center, Kingsley Manor retirement community, Cahuenga Branch Library and Ronald
McDonalds House non-profit organization. The sources of public transportation are Metro
Redline underground train or Metro buses for the local residents, students, healthcare workers
and general population. All these locations are visited by many travelers and are frequented by
the local residents.
The residents within the East Hollywood district have specific demographics, as noted in
the GPPD 2010, that demonstrate the health status of the community. Demographics include the
top three races as Hispanic or Latino, White and Asian with a median age range of approximately
35 years of age. The community has a total male population of 19,575 and female population of
19,042. The age demographic noted in the GPPD 2010 show that females reaching 62 years of
age or higher is about 8% of the total female population whereas the male population is 5%.
Other important demographics are the total household demographic for East Hollywood.
According to GPPD 2010, approximately 13,900 is subdivided into 43% Non-family Households

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and 57% Family Households. Approximately 94% of the East Hollywood tenants live in a
Renter-occupied Housing Unit with 32% Husband-wife family, 8% Male Householder only
families and about 16% Female Householder only families.
The Los Angeles Department of Health Services Public Health (DHSP) publishes the
current health status of the county and provides useful health status information of East
Hollywoods Metro area. The DHSP publication examines some health strengths and weaknesses
of the Metro area Service Planning Area (SPA) 4. According to DHSP, the major strengths of the
Metro community are lower sedentary lifestyle, high physically active lifestyle for adults and
low cancer (breast and cardiovascular) mortality. Major weaknesses of the community, as noted
by DHSP, are no healthcare access for children ages 0-17 or adults 18-64, overweight preteen
and youth, lowest consumers of fruits or vegetables, and it is the highest leading SPA in
unhealthy outcomes (AIDS, Tuberculosis, low birth weight in African Americans and diabetes
mortality).

Community Health Status and Demographic Analysis

East Hollywood total population reflects that there is a specific need for children that are
overweight. As noted by the Department of Public Health, the children of East Hollywood have
higher occurrences of youth overweight. The weakness of the community, as stated by DHSP, are
no health care access and lower consumption of fruits and vegetables. Both of these indicate that
without health coverage, there is no attending medical service provider making families aware of
a problem or for that matter tracking health care concerns. This can also indicate that lower fruit
and vegetable consumption could also be a snowball effect from the lack of access to healthcare,

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primarily because families are not being engaged or aware of healthy lifestyle practices that
service providers recommend at the time of a annual check up.
The household data shows that the most common type is family households, with the
second leading type, being single female family households. The statistics for household
demographic show there exists double the amount of households that are led by working single
mothers versus male single parent households. This status can be an indicator that the primary
influence (mothers) for healthy food choices is absent due to economic hardships the family may
encounter. This also can be an indicator for the affordability of health coverage due to the family
income relying on one parent versus two. There exists a higher amount of women in the
workforce in order to provide for their family and this status may affect the access to food,
healthcare, and well balanced meal the children are exposed to.
A few specific areas of concern include demographics related to age, sex and ethnicity.
The statistical difference of both sexes can prove that there exists a longer life expectancy for
women than in men. Emphasizing better habits for male youth is a area that can be identified in
this community needs assessment. Per the demographics, there is a higher need for youth in
families that fall into the top three ethnic backgrounds (Latino, White or Asian groups).
Incorporating culture appropriate materials is also another area of concern when developing
assessment plans.
Upon analyzing the East Hollywood community and health factors, overweight youth is
a major nutritional problem. Factors that affect this nutritional concern are the household type
and economic status. Keeping in mind, important demographics affect the culture sensitivity and
gender focus included in the assessment.

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Community Needs Assessment

The community need is to develop a healthier, longer life expectancy, and nutritionally
sound youth. The most important community health issues are that it has the highest leading rate
of overweight youth. The nutritional assessment should target the growing school aged children
and youth ages 5-17. It is important to consider the face of each household by incorporating the
individuals responsible for home prepared meals. The main nutritional problem is that children
and youth have no exposure to healthy food choices. Reasons that may be a cause to the health
concerns are culture, single head-of-household status, family finances and preventative
healthcare access.
Intervention
A pro-healthy food choices initiative should address the development of outreach
programs for children, youth and parents. Initiative objectives are to learn healthier food choices
in order to meet age appropriate daily recommendations intakes (DRI) and prevent the
development of chronic conditions. Overweight in youth is a major nutritional problem. The
earlier the onset of the problem the more likely chronic conditions will develop. Poor eating
habits lead to poor healthy lifestyle choices, so intervention is necessary. The Center for Disease
Control defines the term overweight as having excess body weight for a particular height from
fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors. The term outlines a physical
condition that influences a development of obesity in children if left untreated. Almost always,
overweight results from poor food choice intake like consumption of empty calories from junk

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foods. The poor diet lifestyle is influenced by factors like fast food restaurants, fresh food
availability, household income and genetic predispositions.
This pro-healthy food choice initiative is an intervention that should provide nutrition
education, food preparation showcases and low-cost to no-cost food source agency networking.
Data needed for proposed initiative should entail food recall surveys, parent involvement
surveys, physical activity surveys, participants travel time to home location, health screenings
and collaborations with healthcare community outreach assistance programs.The pro-healthy
food choice initiative should be a community concern so partnership with the healthcare and
educational facilities would be beneficial.
The ultimate goal is to increase consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables by 10% for
families from the start of the program. Activities that can increase awareness, education and
knowledge would be initiative objectives. Although culture and economic status may be an
ongoing issue, achieving fresh food access in collaboration with community agencies is also an
ultimate goal.

Evaluation
The intervention is a great way to facilitate the nutritional problem in East Hollywood.
There exists community outreach programs that have reached East Hollywood, like Enrich LA,
which incorporates an educational experience targeting school aged children in elementary,
middle school and high school. Enrich LA is a school garden initiative that holds six week
sessions with students to enhance their understanding and importance of having gardens. During

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this program, students are able to be exposed to preparing healthy snacks by harvesting from the
garden.
This particular program outlines one activity the pro-healthy food choices initiative
would undertake. The evaluation is much different, in that the school grounds allow nutrition
exposure to children but no parent participation is incorporated. Changing these six week
sessions to increase parent participation would allow all family members to be exposed. A even
greater goal is to allow school grounds to be open during the weekend when primary caretakers
have more availability to participate. By doing this, the program can expose all of the
community.

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