Contact:
Tracey Brieger
Californians for Pesticide Reform
415-981-3939
tracey@igc.org
www.pesticidereform.org

San Francisco, CA, June 27, 2008– Californians for Pesticide Reform is one of five recipients of the first round of Strategic Plan Implementation Grant from California Breathing, a program of the California Department of Public Health located in the Environmental Health Investigations Branch.  The Strategic Plan Implementation Grants (SPIG) program is designed to reduce the burden of asthma in California by funding small to mid-size community-based, faith-based and county organizations to implement strategies in communities bearing a disproportionate burden of asthma, as outlined in the State’s Strategic Plan for Asthma in California 2008-2012.

Californians for Pesticide Reform’s funded project, Healthy Homes, is a collaborative effort of member groups, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and Center for Environmental Health, as well as diverse partners from across California. The project addresses the overuse and misuse of pesticides–both causes and triggers of asthma—in low-income, public, and substandard housing. Through improving awareness of the health impacts of in home pesticide use, promoting the use of low-risk, integrated pest management options, and establishing health protective local (Los Angeles) and statewide policies, the project seeks to systematically reduce in home pesticide use and improve indoor air quality.

With both pesticides and pests themselves exacerbating asthma, and low-income communities disproportionately exposed to both, implementing pesticide use reduction and IPM practices and policies in these communities are essential to creating the healthier indoor environments necessary to reduce asthma burdens in California.

For additional information or a sample copy, Contact: Tracey Brieger, Californians for Pesticide Reform 415-981-3939 x 6 or tracey@igc.org

Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) is a statewide coalition of 185 member groups formed in 1996 to improve and protect public health, promote sustainable and just agriculture systems, and increase environmental quality by building a movement across California that changes statewide and local pesticide policies and practices.