2^nd Meeting: Tuesday March 28^th 2000

On March 28^th, a follow-up meeting with an expended group took place at the Ronal Reagan Building in Washington DC. It should be noted that between the January and March meetings, the EPA and the NSC conducted several personal meetings with interested organizations. From these consultations, it was decided that the planners and implementers should, inter alia:

• make their efforts more inclusive (e.g. English-Spanish translations of available documents),

• identify more issues and stakeholders,

• help community based organizations (e.g. identify the obstacles they face in delivering their services to the Hispanic communities)

The primary objectives of the second meeting were twofold:

1. On the one hand, the participants were asked to set priorities by reaching a consensus on the major issues/concerns regarding to the health and safety of the Hispanics, both by timeframe (short, mid and long terms) and by category (occupational, environmental, behavioral, and international).

2. On the other hand, individuals were expected to develop appropriate intervention strategies in order to effectively address such issues/concerns.

In addition, the group debated about several new issues related to the health/safety of the Latino population, such as the case of illegal workers, discrimination in the health and education sectors, asthma, AIDS, and violence.