Provide responses to each classmate post using a minimum of 100 words. In your peer replies, you areencouraged to challenge responses to promote critical thinking on all sides ofa discussion.

Classmate Post #1

Hello everyone,

I really enjoyed the discussion post topic for this week. The environmentaljustice profile I chose for my discussion was the Healthy Food, Healthy School,and Healthy Communities: Project CAFÉ. This was an important topic for me becauseI am studying nutrition science, so that I can become a nutritionist, andanything health food related is a huge interest to me. In this project, it isclear that the workers are trying to prevent health problems such as heartdisease, diabetes, and obesity though the power of healthy eating. The workersare aiming their efforts towards residents in communities that can not affordhealthy food. CAFÉ aims to facilitate community driven changes in nutritionenvironments in low income Latino Los Angeles communities, who are sufferingfrom diet related health conditions (“National Institute of EnvironmentalHealth Sciences,” 2015). They also work to help schools, so that children donot become obese at an early stage in life. The earlier the workers can educatepeople in their lives about the importance of nutrition and healthy living, thebetter. I think it is great that CAFÉ works to help people in low incomefamilies, because I think everyone should have a fair opportunity at healthyliving and nutrient-rich foods.

In this project there were both outputs and outcomes. Some of the outputs camewith survey work and investigating why so many people were eating unhealthyfood options. 90 stores and 5 schools were surveyed, and it turned out that healthyoptions were just out of the price range for consumers (“National Institute ofEnvironmental Health Sciences,” 2005). Their research showed that conveniencestores and liquor stores were the most prevalent food establishments in thetargeted city in LA. This means that more people were enticed to eat at cheapfast food or convenience stores, rather than buying healthy food in supermarkets. The outputs of Project CAFÉ were that the workers were able to trainaround 100 community members about the importance of food decisions, and theywere able to reach more than 5,000 community members (“National Institute ofEnvironmental Health Sciences,” 2005). Policies were also set in place forstricter nutrition standards for children in schools. This provides childrenwith healthier options during their school time meals, even if they do not getthe proper nutrition at home. CAFÉ is also working on providing healthy foodtrucks to come to the LA area, so that residents have more options for healthyfast food.

A few steps that I would suggest for the investigators if they continue ProjectCAFÉ, would be to start a campaign to raise money for the low-income families,that could be used to purchase health food from local super markets, and starta healthy food bank for the community. The could even accept donations fromstores, or other community members, that can help provide nutrient-rich foodsto lower income families. Another suggestion I have is for Project CAFÉ to helpprovide transportation to local markets that sell health food. Some people inlow-income areas might not have cars or a way to get out of their town topurchase the right foods that their body needs. If CAFÉ provided a bus to themarket, they might be more willing to shop at the grocery store, rather thanonly go to convenience stores. Since supermarkets are lacking in the Latino LAarea, they could look into building more super markets, instead of constantlybuilding more fast food restaurants and liquor stores. I think there are a numberof suggestions that could be made to help improve this project, and have peoplein low income households, and children in school systems get the rightnutrition they need. There should be no excuse as to why people are not allowedto fuel their body with the proper nutrition.

-Shannon Harris

References:

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (July2015). Advancing Environmental Justice. Retrieved from https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/trans…

Turnock, B. J. (2016). Essentials of public health (3rd ed.).Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Classmate Post #2

Hello Professor and Classmates,

The environmental justice profile that I chose to write aboutfor this week’s discussion is “Asthma and Demolition in Chicago PublicHousing”. The disease that the project investigators work to address is asthmathat is associated with air pollutants due to airborne matter from thedemolition of public housing. For this environmental justice profile theinvestigators targeted audience are low income, residents in urban areas thatlive in public housing and African Americans. Some of the outputs from thisstudy were getting the word out about the poor air quality as a result of thedemolition, more help in order to suppress the dust and the research from thestudy being published. There were three different outcomes from this studywhich included more participation from the public in the research, primarilythose who were affected by the demolition. The other two outcomes were improveddemolition methods and increased investigator took classes to get moreexperience in air pollution monitoring. I believe a next great step in thisstudy would be in finding or creating material that you can use to buildbuildings that would not cause this type of air pollution when and if they hadto be demolition. Solving the problem of polluting the air with the largeparticles or any air pollution that triggers asthma symptoms.

-Turquiose Johnson

Environmental Health Coalition. Who We Are., EnvironmentalHealth Coalition ., (2011) www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/who-we-are.

Classmate Post #3

The independent sample t-test is a member of the t-testfamily, which consists of tests that compare mean values of continuous-level,interval or ratio data, normally distributed data. The independent samplet-test compares two means. It assumes a model where the variables in theanalysis are split into independent and dependent variables. The modelassumes that a difference in the mean score of the dependent variable is foundbecause of the influence of the independent variable. Thus, theindependent sample t-test is an analysis of dependence. It is one of themost widely used statistical tests, and is sometimes erroneously called theindependent variable t-test.

-Lynette Magee

Reference:

Leni, J. (2016). Conduct and Interpret an Independent SampleT-test. Statistics Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.statisticssolutions.com/independent-sample-t-test/

Classmate Post #4

Homogeneity of Variance mean the same thing as equality of variances and usually in statistics the terms are used for one in the same. Variance represents the average squared deviations between a group of observations and their respective mean. It’s a measure of spread and an example would be the sum of the differences between an observation and it’s mean squared divided by the number of observations minus one. In statistics the variance is a better estimate of the population variance when you use (n-1) rather than (N). That is the formula for variance and if you use the square root of variance then you should get the standard deviation which is represented by an “S” or “SD.” Homogeneity of Variance is important because it’s a common assumption across several statistical analyses including the t-test and ANOVA. It’s also useful for testing meaningful hypotheses as well. Homogeneity of Variance mean the variance in the groups are of the same nature or that the two groups have the same kind of variability. The variances do not have to be exactly equal, but they must be close in relation. Variances are tested for qualification through the Levene’s test which will show the equality of variance. Levene’s test will test whether variances of two samples are approximately equal. The Levene’s test should be nonsignificant that is the assumption of the independent sample t-test. In SPSS the Levene’s test is conducted automatically anytime you do an independent samples t-test. The significance should not be greater than .05 to be assumed.

Antonio Ellison

Reference

Michael E., O., & Ky L., M. (2002). Levene Tests of Homogeneity of Variance for General Block and Treatment Designs. Biometrics, (1), 216.

Urban, T. C. (2011). Statistics in Plain English, Third Edition. Retrieved from https://purdueuniversityglobal.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781136967573/cfi/6/24[;vnd.vst.idref=BODY12]