Youth Participatory Action Researchers (PAR) conduct community assessments and community health interventions

Participatory action research (PAR) involves collaboration between researchers and the people they study to identify, explore and address issues. Since 2007, the Alameda County Public Health Department has engaged youth ages 12-24 years old from low-income Oakland neighborhoods in PAR to identify youth priorities for building healthier and safer communities. This youth PAR project is part of a larger public health project with the Alameda County Public Health Department and City of Oakland's City Neighborhood Initiative (CCNI) in Oakland, CA. The CCNI formed two neighborhood youth groups and joined them into the Oakland Youth Movement (OYM). Consequently, OYM conducted 2 neighborhood-level youth surveys with 200 youth. With mentorship from adult researchers, youth created survey questions, collected survey data through face-to-face interviews, input data, analyzed quantitative and qualitative data and developed data presentations to community members and leaders, partner organizations and policy makers. Among survey findings, the youth identified drugs (91%), violence (87%), not enough youth activities (79%), lack of jobs for youth (77%) and trash on the streets (73%) as problems that directly affect their health. Subsequently, OYM developed youth-friendly health promotion activities on nutrition, physical fitness and violence prevention. In one of the neighborhoods, they developed a community-wide program that provided day-long play activities, health education on nutrition, violence prevention and gang awareness workshops. Using their PAR results, Oakland youth have begun to influence policy makers to take action on their identified priorities, such as the commitment to build the West Oakland Teen Center.