FOOD/HEALTH/ MIGRATION
This is Narcisa. She lives in an apartment building not far from the center, and we were fortunate to speak with her about her environment and how it is impacting her health. Like many others living in the city, Narcisa has spent many winters in her apartment without heat. Never having asthma as a child or young adult, Narcisa knew that something external had been triggering her newly found chronic condition. She knew that it was the conditions in her building that were to blame, and has yet been able to reverse her symptoms.
Going two days in the same week is TREMENDOUSLY helpful with getting people to open up. We even had members walk up to us this time, as they were interested to know what we were doing there all the time. We've started to actually form friendships with these people...so not only is it personally nice for Diomelca and me, but it gives us a purpose behind our research...a passion.
We are noticing that HOUSING and overall PUBLIC SAFETY are two factors that are having a huge impact on the lives of these community members, which could led to other explanations about health outcomes other than diet and individual lifestyle choices.
Many of the food surveys came out overwhelmingly good, showing us that many of the members claim to have knowledge not only about good fruits and vegetables, but how to cook them and implement them into a good meal, and went on to say that they were eating these foods on a regular if not semi regular basis.
SO, why then would the back of these same surveys would there be 3-5 chronic illnesses checked off on nearly all of them? There was only one person out of 13 so far that did not have any chronic illness, and he was ironically enough one of the ODLER members we surveyed.
Going two days in the same week is TREMENDOUSLY helpful with getting people to open up. We even had members walk up to us this time, as they were interested to know what we were doing there all the time. We've started to actually form friendships with these people...so not only is it personally nice for Diomelca and me, but it gives us a purpose behind our research...a passion.
We are noticing that HOUSING and overall PUBLIC SAFETY are two factors that are having a huge impact on the lives of these community members, which could led to other explanations about health outcomes other than diet and individual lifestyle choices.
Many of the food surveys came out overwhelmingly good, showing us that many of the members claim to have knowledge not only about good fruits and vegetables, but how to cook them and implement them into a good meal, and went on to say that they were eating these foods on a regular if not semi regular basis.
SO, why then would the back of these same surveys would there be 3-5 chronic illnesses checked off on nearly all of them? There was only one person out of 13 so far that did not have any chronic illness, and he was ironically enough one of the ODLER members we surveyed.