CDC Special Interest Projects (SIPs)

SIP 13: Salsita Community Mapping Project

The Salsita Community Mapping demonstration project was implemented by the San Ysidro Health Center, the SDPRC's main community partner, in San Ysidro, CA, along the U.S.-Mexico border. The project focused on an informational campaign to increase awareness of the resources available for physical activity among participants in SYHC's Project Salsita (childhood obesity prevention/intervention program). Working in collaboration with a local artist and a geographic information systems expert, the Salsita Community Mapping project identified accessible physical activity resources (e.g., parks, trails, recreation centers, etc.) within a 1/2 mile radius of Salsita families' houses; visually appealing maps were then created for these families. These maps helped community residents locate safe, affordable and accessible physical activity resources.

The Salsita Community Mapping project also implemented a modified photovoice study with these families, providing them with disposable cameras to document environmental disparities in their neighborhoods and to take photos of barriers to physical activity. Afterwards, project staff convened families to discuss barriers to physical activity, healthy eating, and built environment problems in the community.

Last, San Ysidro Health Center organized a "Policymaker Forum," inviting families who participated in the PhotoVoice project, city employees working in the area of the built environment, media representatives, health center directors and board members, to discuss the types of problems documented in the photos and potential solutions.

SIP13, Increasing and Translating the Evidence: Increasing Physical Activity Among Adults in Racially/Ethnically Diverse Communities in the United States was funded to identify issues to consider when adapting physical activity interventions with and within racial/ethnic minority communities. This SIP was awarded to the PRC’s National Community Committee and the University of St. Louis PRC, which together created and issued a Call for Proposals to all community organizations partnering with PRC's to apply for funds to carry out demonstration projects with technical support and assistance from their PRC's. The San Ysidro Health Center was among the community agencies selected.

See the publication on SIP13 (pdf), which features the Salsita Community Mapping project on pages 24 and 25. It also describes SIP13's capacity building effort: providing an Evidenced Based Research training to all PRC National Community Committee representatives (including San Ysidro Health Center), involving a small group of National Community Committee representatives in developing the demonstration project RFP, providing technical assistance to grant seekers in proposal writing, and incorporating a group of National Community Committee representatives in the grant review and selection process.