Creating Healthy Transportation Policy through Youth-Led Video Voice Advocacy

Since 2009, Cal Walks Youth Leaders have advanced community-driven transportation policies that prioritize health and safety through the use of VideoVoice—a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) tool where youth, older adults, and other community members self-select and collect video data on existing health and safety conditions and articulate their needs and desired outcomes. Youth Leaders have peer-mentored and trained—via workshops, conferences, and webinars (in English and Spanish)—other youth, older adults, public health practitioners, and community members in VideoVoice best practices across California and nationally. Because VideoVoice requires community ownership of the end product, it is a powerful research method that cultivates sustainable youth leadership in advocacy for healthy, safe, and equitable communities.

In this session, Youth Leaders will present VideoVoice vignettes used in their healthy transportation policy advocacy in Kern County, discuss how they initially became involved, why they work with Cal Walks and APHA’s CBPHC Youth Council, what they’ve experienced traveling statewide mentoring youth and adults, what community successes, including healthy policy changes have occurred, and how the Cal Walks Youth Leaders program has influenced their future career paths toward health and science.