Behind the smiles...Identifying the health and safety hazards of street mobile food vendors

Karen Calderon, M.A., Political Science SDSU Jessica Vu, B.S. ,B.S., Public Health and Human Biology UCSDIn partnership with the Employee Rights Center (ERC)

Background• Informal Economy• Criminalization • Community Controversy

Examples of Mobile Street Food Vendor Food

Objectives• Learn more about street mobile

food vendors• Involve involve them in the

street food movement• Identify and respond to H&S

issues • Ultimate goal: Legalization of all

mobile food vending in City Heights

Methods• Mixed methods (qualitative

and quantitative)•Surveys•In-depth interviews•Focus Groups

General Results

● 48 interviews○ 74 % paleteros ○ 26% food vendors

● 2 focus groups○ 7 participants

● Demographics

Sites: schools, parks, alleys, small businesses, ERC

Psychological Hazards

Poor living conditions

“What is the cause of the stress/pressure?”

Workplace Violence

Physical Hazards

As one paletero describes it:

“Caminamos 10 o hasta 15 millas… y luego puchando el carrito cargado de paletas todo el dia. Pues como no te va doler el cuerpo?”

Physical and Environmental Hazards

•Climate•dehydration•fatigue •heat-strokes

•Burns•Frost-burns•Stove burns

Paletero showing his frost-burn scar from handling the ice-cream.

Give Back Project

Example of Dry-fit shirt

For Workers: For the ERC and the public:

Business Survey Results•11 participants (all small business owners) •Most agreed (~90%) that street vendors should be legalized •Focused on public health safety issues as well as economic issues

Successes:•Increase the number of participants

•Earn their trust•Extended help to worker’s families

•Gathered multiple points of views on the same issue

Challenges:•Finding participants •Explaining to the workers that we did not have an immediate solution

•Language barrier

Challenges and Successes

Recommendations•Expand on the preliminary business surveys•Keep contact with street vendors•When collecting data, make a distinction between paleteros and mobile street food vendors

•When hiring future interns, it would be more beneficial to have at least two spanish-speaking interns.

Karen and Jessica’s Reflections

Acknowledgements Thank You to:

• NIOSH• The California

Wellness Foundation• OHIP• ERC• Alor Calderon• Adriana Huerta-Reyes• Brenda Diaz• Peter Zschiesche• Laura Yamaguchi• Parke Troutman• All of the street food

vendors!

ERC Team

Paletero