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San Francisco’s Healthy Heart Campaign Promotes Fitness for African Americans and Latinos

Published

10 years ago

October 27, 2015

African Americans in the city of San Francisco are almost at twice the number of stroke-related deaths, compared to other races and ethnicities.

Charles Burns, 56, almost found out about this the hard way when a stroke altered his life.

“Two years ago, I was driving and on my way home in the Bay View when my vision started getting blurry,” said Burns. “I got home and took a nap and thought I could sleep it off. The next day, I ended up using the bathroom on myself, and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

He went to St. Luke’s Hospital where he found out he had suffered a mild stroke. After learning his diagnosis, he was in the hospital for seven days.

“I had to get myself back together, and I was in rehab for six months,” he said.

In rehab he had to relearn how to walk and function again. Burns did his outpatient treatment at Southeast Health Clinic, when he was referred to the Bay View YMCA’s health program and once in that program, he changed his life around.

Burns is part of Healthy Heart San Francisco, a new federally funded campaign initiated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The program is designed to promote fitness opportunities for low-income San Francisco residents in the African American and Latino communities.

Health workers at city clinics offer physical activity prescriptions to people to take advantage of fitness classes, dieting and lifestyle changes, which help to promote healthier lifestyles.

“At the YMCA, I joined programs and began exercising daily with the treadmill, weights, walking and swimming,” said Burns. “I also changed my diet around, cutting back on the beef and sticking with a lot of chicken, fish and vegetables.”

Nationally, there are more than 1.5 million heart attacks and strokes that take place yearly according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Nearly 44 percent of African American men and 48 percent of African American women have some form of cardiovascular disease that includes heart disease and stroke.

A recent survey by the CDC found that more than (26.1 percent of Latinos reported having high blood pressure, and 30.4 percent with high blood pressure weren’t taking medication that could reduce their risk for heart attack and stroke.

According to the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Community Health Assessment, in San Francisco African American men have a higher rate of death than other ethnicities when it comes to heart disease, strokes and lung cancer.

African American women also have higher rates of death compared to other races when it comes to heart disease, strokes and lung cancer.

Health officials feel that the Healthy Heart Campaign can help spur lifestyle changes and promote improved health.

The main goal is to address health inequities…for African-Americans and Latinos who live in [areas] where at least 30 percent of the population live below 200 percent of the [poverty level] and 25 percent of adults are without a high school education,” said Jacqueline McCright, the deputy director of community health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Andre Larrimore, a 53-year old Black man, has been a beneficiary of the Healthy Heart program, after almost not being able to walk, after having a work accident at the San Francisco Shipyard.

“I was on a wooden scaffold that was 20 feet up in the air when I slipped and fell and landed on my back and hit my head,” said Larrimore. “The end result was that I had a broken back and had suffered a concussion.”

He was in San Francisco General Hospital for a week and in a back brace for two months. In the process of being in the brace, he picked up a lot of extra weight and he began to worry about his health.

“I began to realize I had to take better care of my health,” continued Larrimore.

Ultimately, he enrolled in programs at the YMCA, began to walk and he changed his diet.

“I walk every day, workout daily and I have lowered my blood pressure and my diabetes is in control,” said Larrimore. “I am living much better as I have changed my diet 90 percent.”

The Healthy Heart program is a three-year pilot program, funded for $800,000. Residents in San Francisco can access the free classes by visiting the participating city clinics in San Francisco or by dialing 211 for more information.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

5 months ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.

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Arts and Culture

Rise East Project: Part 3

Between 1990 and 2020, Oakland lost nearly half of its Black population due to economic and social forces. East Oakland, once a middle-class community, is now home to mostly Black families living in poverty.

Published

2 years ago

October 12, 2023

Oakland Post

CEO of Black Culture Zone Carolyn Johnson, a native from Deep East Oakland is making the change she wishes to see in her community and in her people. Black Culture Zone has created a power base of Black folks making a difference in Deep East Oakland. Photo by Kumi Rauf.

The Black Cultural Zone’s Pivotal Role in Rebuilding Oakland’s Black Community

By Tanya Dennis

In 2021, 314 Oakland residents died from COVID-19. More than 100 of them, or about 33.8%, were Black, a high rate of death as Blacks constitute only 22.8% of Oakland’s population.

This troubling fact did not go unnoticed by City and County agencies, and the public-at-large, ultimately leading to the development of several community organizations determined to combat what many deemed an existential threat to Oakland’s African American residents.

Eastside Arts Alliance had already proposed that a Black Cultural Zone be established in Deep East Oakland in 2010, but 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic galvanized the community.

Demanding Black legacy preservation, the Black Cultural Zone (BCZ) called for East Oakland to be made an “unapologetically Black” business, commercial, economic development community.

Established initially as a welcoming space for Black art and culture, BCZ emerged into a a community development collective, and acquired the Eastmont police substation in Eastmont Town Center from the City of Oakland in 2020.

Once there, BCZ immediately began combating the COVID-19 pandemic with drive-thru PPE distribution and food giveaways. BCZ’s Akoma Market program allowed businesses to sell their products and wares safely in a COVID-compliant space during the COVID-19 shutdown.

Currently, Akoma Market is operated twice a month at 73^rd and Foothill Boulevard and Akoma vendors ‘pop up’ throughout the state at festivals and community-centered events like health fairs.

“Before BCZ existed, East Oakland was a very depressing place to live,” said Ari Curry, BCZ’s chief experience officer and a resident of East Oakland. “There was a sense of hopelessness and not being seen. BCZ allows us to be seen by bringing in the best of our culture and positive change into some of our most depressed areas.”

The culture zone innovates, incubates, informs, and elevates the Black community and centers it in arts and culture, Curry went on.

“With the mission to center ourselves unapologetically in arts, culture, and economics, BCZ allows us to design, resource, and build on collective power within our community for transformation,” Curry concluded.

As a part of Oakland Thrives, another community collective, BCZ began working to secure $100 million to develop a ‘40 by 40’ block area that runs from Seminary Avenue to the Oakland-San Leandro border and from MacArthur Boulevard to the Bay.

The project would come to be known as Rise East.

Carolyn Johnson, CEO of BCZ says, “Our mission is to build a vibrant legacy where we thrive economically, anchored in Black art and commerce. The power to do this is being realized with the Rise East Project.

“With collective power, we are pushing for good health and self-determination, which is true freedom,” Johnson says. “BCZ’s purpose is to innovate, to change something already established; to incubate, optimizing growth and development, and boost businesses’ economic growth with our programs; we inform as we serve as a trusted source of information for resources to help people; and most important, we elevate, promoting and boosting Black folks up higher with the services we deliver with excellence.

“Rise East powers our work in economics, Black health, education, and power building. Rise East is the way to get people to focus on what BCZ has been doing. The funding for the 40 by 40 Rise East project is funding the Black Culture Zone,” Johnson said.

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Alameda County

Help Protect D.A. Pamela Price’s Victory

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is asking supporters of the justice reform agenda that led her to victory last November to come to a Town Hall on public safety at Montclair Presbyterian Church on July 27.

Published

2 years ago

July 25, 2023

Oakland Post

D.A. Pamela Price

By Post Staff

Price is facing a possible recall election just six months into her term by civic and business interests, some of whom will be at the in-person meeting from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at 5701 Thornhill Dr. in Oakland.

“We know that opponents of criminal justice reform plan to attend this meeting and use it as a forum against the policies that Alameda County voters mandated DA Price to deliver. We cannot let them succeed,” her campaign team’s email appeal said.

“That’s why I’m asking you to join us at the town hall,” the email continued. “We need to show up in force and make sure that our voices are heard.”

Price’s campaign is also seeking donations to fight the effort to have her recalled.

Her history-making election as the first African American woman to hold the office had been a surprise to insiders who had expected that Terry Wiley, who served as assistant district attorney under outgoing D.A. Nancy O’Malley, would win.

Price campaigned as a progressive, making it clear to voters that she wanted to curb both pretrial detention and life-without-parole sentences among other things. She won, taking 53% of the vote.

Almost immediately, Price was challenged by some media outlets as well as business and civic groups who alleged, as she began to fulfill those campaign promises, that she was soft on crime.

On July 11, the recall committee called Save Alameda for Everyone (S.A.F.E.) filed paperwork with the county elections office to begin raising money for the next step toward Price’s ouster: gathering signatures of at least 10% of the electorate.

S.A.F.E. has its work cut out for them, but Price needs to be prepared to fight them to keep her office.

In a separate sponsored letter to voters, Price supporters wrote:

“We know that you supported DA Price because you believe in her vision for a more just and equitable Alameda County. We hope you share our belief that our criminal justice system has to be fair to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status.

“The Republican-endorsed effort is a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the voters and a waste of time and money. It is an attempt to silence the voices of those who want real justice. We cannot let these election deniers succeed.

“Will you make a donation today to help us protect the win?

“Please watch this video and share it with your friends and family. We need to stand up to the sore losers and protect the win. Together, we can continue to make Alameda County a more just, safe and equitable place for everyone.”

For more information, go to the website: pamelaprice4da.com
or send an e-mail to info@pamelaprice4da.com