Eliminate “Asthma Alley”
A microsite on the high rates of asthma among children who live in the Bronx borough of New York City.
This microsite is intended to inform Bronx residents, many of whom have lived in the Bronx for most of their lives, of the disproportionate rates of asthma among children in the borough on both the city-wide and national levels. New York City in particular has a higher overall prevalence of childhood asthma (11 percent) than the nation as a whole; however, the borough of the Bronx has the highest rates of asthma among children in NYC. This campaign aims to empower residents to voice their concerns and priorities to their local government officials, particularly in light of Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to redesign the Cross-Bronx Expressway based on community feedback.
Artist
Ericka Familia (2023)
View the Eliminate “Asthma Alley” Microsite
Artist Lens
This microsite was inspired by my own experience. From kindergarten through eighth grade, I attended a public school in the New York City neighborhood of the South Bronx. At my school, students frequently experienced asthma symptoms and took breaks from class to visit the nurse’s office to use their inhalers. Although I did not have asthma myself, a large fraction of the students in my class did, and it was simply deemed a normal situation. It was not until I transferred to a private high school—a predominantly white institution where most students hailed from significantly wealthier areas of the city—that I realized the prevalence of asthma among the students at my former school was not typical.
I aim to help residents connect the health conditions they witness on a day-to-day basis in their local neighborhoods to concrete decisions made by policymakers on their behalf that harm their communities, such as the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. I want residents to realize that the health outcomes normalized in the Bronx are not simply a product of chance but of tangible structures that fuel environmental racism in NYC. I chose to create a microsite because it would allow me to provide a comprehensive explanation of the health issue, including insightful charts depicting asthma rates, alarming statistics from a variety of different sources, and links to relevant pages to inspire a call to action, such as contact information for NYC council members. Because the majority of the South Bronx population is Hispanic, I created versions of the same webpage in English and Spanish to make the information more accessible to my target population.
Media
Digital