Prevention Matters

A San Francisco program that turns unused roadway areas into parks was named Partnership for Prevention's "Best Prevention Idea of the Week," while federal officials’ delay in informing schools about potentially tainted food was named “Worst Prevention Idea of the Week.”

The Best/Worst Idea awards are a regular feature of Prevention Matters, the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Each week, Partnership for Prevention's staff will choose the designees based on nominations of items in the previous week's news submitted by members, staff and the public at large. To submit a nomination or for more information, contact Damon Thompson at dthompson@prevent.org.


BEST

SF PROGRAM TRANSFORMS PAVEMENT INTO PARKS
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/pavement-to-parks/?emc=eta1

San Francisco’s “Pavement to Parks” program creates green spaces where people can walk and be active by reclaiming excess roadway, through the use of simple and low-cost design interventions. A pro bono designer works on each park (there are 12 scheduled to be finished through 2010; three have just been completed) with the mandate of using materials the city already has to maximize greenery and “transform a sea of asphalt.”

WORST

U.S. DELAYED TELLING SCHOOLS ABOUT FOOD RECALLS
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32989396/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/?ocid=twitter/from/ET

The federal government failed to inform schools of recalls of suspected tainted food products, potentially putting millions of schoolchildren at risk of food poisoning over the last two years, a government investigation has concluded. The recalled foods included salmonella-tainted peanut products linked to the deaths of at least nine people, said the report, which was completed last month by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.