Earlier this year, the American Lung Association released its annual State of the Air report, which showed that 98% of Californians live in communities with unhealthy air. L.A. County received an F grade for having a high number of unhealthy ozone days. Poor air quality can cause a variety of adverse health outcomes, including respiratory infections, heart disease and cancer.
For more than a decade, CicLAvia has been working to improve air quality through its series of car-free events across Los Angeles, and L.A. Care Health Plan is proud to sponsor a series of these events in the coming months. CicLAvia encourages people to get to know different areas of the city by closing streets to cars and opening them to pedestrians and bicycles. CicLAvia, the biggest open streets event in the country, has shown to improve air quality by reducing ultrafine particles in the air by more than 20 percent. Each event gets people moving, which also helps to improve health.
The events that L.A. Care is sponsoring start this month and will continue into next year.
Details of each sponsored event will be updated here. The events are:
• Sunday, June 18
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
South L.A. – Vermont Avenue
• Sunday, August 20
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Koreatown meets Hollywood
• September 17
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
CicLAmini – North Hollywood
• Sunday, October 15
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
CicLAvia – Heart of LA
• Sunday, December 3
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Leimert Park meets Historic South Central
L.A. Care will have booths at each event, and there will be materials available to help people learn about the affordable health coverage options available to them and how to access L.A. Care resources. We invite members and non-members to drop by the L.A. Care booth.