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Philadelphia Project Strengthened with New Team Memeber - February 2007
February 19, 2007
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Dion Lerman, a certified food safety professional and instructor, will continue his work with low-income urban residents in a newly expanded Pennsylvania IPM project aimed at reducing pesticide use through educational outreach.
Lerman will be overseeing a joint effort of the Pennsylvania IPM Program and the New Jersey IPM Program to identify residents at risk of developing asthma due to pests and pesticide triggers in Philadelphia, Pa. and Camden, NJ.
IPM, or integrated pest management, is a safe, effective, and scientific approach to managing pests. IPM uses knowledge of pests’ habits and needs to help residents implement pest prevention tactics as a first line of defense. Because pesticides are poisonous, they are chosen only as a temporary tool. Only pesticide products that pose the least-toxic, least risk of exposure to residents are chosen. Information about proper use, storage and disposal of pesticide products is also critical to avoid personal and environmental contamination.
According to Lerman, inner-city residents are especially at risk for developing asthma and other health problems from multiple sources of environmental pollutants and toxins. Recent studies indicate both pests and pesticides can cause and aggravate asthma and other health issues, especially with children and elderly residents.
Lerman will first identify residents’ attitudes and current activities concerning pests and pesticide use in the West Powelton neighborhood of Philadelphia and Camden, NJ. PA IPM has already been working in West Powelton through the Pennsylvania School and Community IPM Partnership (PSCIP), which the program formed three years ago. “We’ll be determining survey protocols and doing a pretest of the survey in the weeks to come,” Lerman explains. PA IPM will also survey local stores to find out the types of pesticides that are being sold to local residents.
Each resident that participates in the project will receive an IPM resource kit containing information about using IPM to control pests, nontoxic traps with instructions, and sealed containers to store food items. In addition, Lerman will help develop new outreach materials to meet the needs of their target communities. The group will work with urban health partners to develop brochures, radio spots, presentations and other forms of communications. They’ll also begin developing multi-lingual publications, starting with Spanish. PA IPM estimates that at least 500 residents and six health care organizations and their staff will be educated on pests, pesticide use and IPM.
Lerman has been a chef instructor at the Peoples Emergency Center (PEC) in Philadelphia for five years where he teaches food safety and helps create brighter futures for mothers working their way from welfare to independence. PEC provides a continuum of care for homeless families. PEC runs an emergency shelter, transitional housing, GED training, parenting classes, computer training, drug and alcohol counseling, work readiness programs and home ownership classes. For more information, visit their Web site at http://www.pec-cares.org/.
Lerman has over 25 years in the restaurant business, and he has over 12 years of experience developing outreach materials targeted to low-income urban residents. He has also taught IPM in food service for many years. Lerman says, “I’m really excited working with PA IPM, it’s just a natural extension from my work in food safety training to environmental health issues. Plus, it will get me out of the kitchen!”
PA IPM and New Jersey IPM were awarded a Northeast Regional Integrated Pest Management grant to fund the project. These funds are administered by the Northeast Regional IPM Center, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For more information on the project, PSCIP and community IPM, visit Web site http://www.pscip.org/. Or, you may contact Niedermeier at the Philadelphia Cooperative Extension IPM and PSCIP office, phone (215) 471-2200, ext. 109, or e-mail mxn14@psu.edu.
The Pennsylvania IPM program is collaboration between the Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture aimed at promoting integrated pest management in both agricultural and urban settings. For more information, contact the program at (814) 865-2839, or Web site http://www.paipm.org/. To view our archived news releases, see Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/10.htm.