The June 27, 2004 San Francisco Chronicle published a public interest piece written by a freelance photographer who spent more than one year researching the effects of asthma in a poor, industrial neighborhood in San Francisco called Bayview-Hunters Point. The article describes the area as predominantly populated by African American, Asian and Latino residents “who face a multitude of health problems” including asthma. The article discusses how children with asthma in the area are often misdiagnosed and many of the residents are not educated about the disease. According to the article, many of the children in the area “remain untreated until their airways become inflamed and then must be rushed, gasping for air, to an emergency room.” The article quotes federal estimates on asthma incidence in the Bay area: about a half-million people there have asthma and more than 50,000 of them live in San Francisco; Bayview- Hunters Point has the highest incidence of asthma in the city, with about 1 in every 6 children affected.
The article describes how the San Francisco Asthma Task Force was created in 2001 after Bayview- Hunters Point residents lobbied the Board of Supervisors. According to the article, the group presented its recommendations in a report last summer, which called for mobile monitoring in local neighborhoods to find the worst pockets of pollution; inspecting city housing projects for dust and mold; and improving school district policies that care for children with asthma.
For the entire article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/27/ING1U79TTS1.DTL.
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