U.S. EPA Recognizes Lehigh Valley Coalition’s Efforts to Improve Children’s Health

Local Families Take Measures to Reduce Children’s Exposure to Second-Hand Smoke

Lehigh Valley, Pa. (Oct. 16, 2006) – Gisell Casanova, a 31-year-old mother of four from Allentown faced the same problem as many smokers. She kept trying unsuccessfully to quit. According to Casanova, right after she quit the first time something stressful happened in her life and she started “smoking like a chimney.” She tried to smoke outside the house or in the bathroom, but when she opened the bathroom door, the entire house would smell like smoke.

Casanova met Esther Vittini, M.D., tobacco program coordinator at Latinos for Healthy Communities, in November 2005. After hearing Dr.Vittini’s description of the impact of second-hand smoke on others, Casanova decided to try again to quit – for the sake of her children. “I know the house smells better and so do my clothes and hair and skin,” Casanova says. “The children have noticed too and are happy about it.”

Casanova’s success can be credited in part to the Keep Us Healthy Collaborative, a joint initiative of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Valley -- part of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network’s Community Health Department, Latinos for Healthy Communities and the Bethlehem Health Bureau. The Collaborative employed community outreach workers to educate Latino urban families about the consequences of second-hand smoke exposure on children and adults and to encourage tobacco cessation.

Evidence of the Keep Us Healthy Collaborative’s impact was the recognition it received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April with the 2006 Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award. Alice Dalla Palu, director of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Valley (CSFV), traveled to Washington D.C. to accept the award, presented for reducing children’s exposure to second-hand smoke in the home and automobile.

The award-winning project was geared toward educating Latino and low-income families in Lehigh and Northampton Counties about the impact of second-hand smoke on their health and that of their children. Of the 1,070 participating families 31 percent changed their in-home smoking policy and 21 percent changed their in-car smoking policy. In addition, fourteen individuals quit smoking on their own as a direct result of the initiative.

“The Keep Us Healthy intervention demonstrates that a brief intervention can impact a family’s life,” Dalla Palu says. The project team worked together to develop materials – brochures, home/car stickers reflecting a smoke-free policy, posters, cessation treatment resource materials – in both Spanish and English. The materials and survey questions were then reviewed by the outreach interventionist during the in-home visit.

“We are pleased to have been one of the fourteen EPA Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award winners,” Dalla Palu says. “But even more important is the fact that we have helped protect and improve the health of a significant number of families in the Lehigh Valley. What we have learned with this project will help us as we move forward to educate and support smoking cessation in our communities.”

The Keep Us Healthy Collaborative was funded through a collaborative grant from the American Legacy Foundation Priority Populations Initiative and administered by the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Valley, working in conjunction with Latinos for Healthy Communities and the Bethlehem Health Bureau. Each organization provides tobacco control services in Lehigh and Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania. As the third largest metropolitan area in the state, the Lehigh Valley has more than 50,000 Latinos residing here. Latinos are also the fastest growing population here and are heavily concentrated in Allentown and Bethlehem, where their population reaches 25 percent. Sixty percent of school students in Allentown are Latino and are from families whose incomes are at or below the poverty level. Lower education and low-income correlate with higher smoking prevalence due to a number of factors: higher incidence of tobacco industry marketing practices in these neighborhoods, less informed adults and children on the hazards of tobacco use and second-hand smoke, and less access to programs to assist them in stopping tobacco use.

For more information on the award or about local tobacco prevention activities, please visit www.smokefreevalley.org.

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