Healthy Youth Healthy Regions

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• Healthy Youth/ Healthy Regions
• Advisory Committee
• April 28, 2009

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HY/HR Exemplifies

• Inter-disciplinary, mixed-method and engaged
  research to inform solutions that matter to the
  region
• Collaborative partnerships for mutual teaching ,
  learning and action
• Rigorous research in support of social equity and
  sustainability

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HY/HR Motivations

• Youth disparities intertwined with regional
  equity
• Complex relationships (systems, scales, places)
• Regional collaboration needed
• Improved information to catalyze action

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Youth well-being via regional equity
Regional equity via youth well-being
Youth disparities legible/ actionable _at_ regional
scale
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HY/HR Methodology Overview

• Questions
• What are the patterns and causes of youth
  disparities in the Sacramento region?
• How can these patterns be changed? (What is the
  role of regional action?)

• Methods
• Documenting social and spatial disparities
• Institutional and ethnographic analyses
• Participatory youth digital stories

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Audiences and Outcomes
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• Healthy Youth/ Healthy Regions
• Documenting and Analyzing Regional Disparities

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Key research questions

• What are the current patterns of youth social and
  spatial disparities in the region and how has
  this changed over time?
• What factors are strongly associated with these
  disparities?
• What are the implications of these disparities
  for the overall health of the region?

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Methods

• Quantitative analysis of secondary data in four
  broad areas
• Educational attainment
• Labor market attachment
• Civic engagement
• Health status
• Analytically focused on documenting
• Outcomes
• Inputs
• Costs
• Emphasis on social and spatial disparity
• Race, gender, immigration, family structure
• Neighborhood, school district, city, county,
  region

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Types of Indicators-1

• Education
• Outcomes High school achievement higher
  education enrollment and transfer
• Inputs Resources, quality of teachers and
  facilities neighborhood and other non-school
  characteristics
• Labor market attachment
• Outcomes Employment, wages, spatial access
• Inputs Demand, supply, institutional connections

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Types of Indicators-2

• Civic engagement
• Outcomes Electoral participation and
  participation in community governance
• Inputs Resources, organizations and measures of
  community support
• Health status
• Outcomes Self-reported health, mortality rates,
  health index
• Inputs Health care access

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Contributions to overall initiative

• Calculating costs of disparity (social, economic,
  political, health)
• Identifying key groups (both socially and
  spatially) and institutions for more in-depth
  focus
• Providing support for policy priorities and focus

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• Healthy Youth/ Healthy Regions
• Linking youth experience with regional
  institutional capacities

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Qualitative team overviewlinking youth
experience with regional institutional capacities

• A bottom-up and top-down approach
• Youth experiences of (dis)connection
• Regional networks and institutions

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Primary research questions

• How does the region as a unit of analysis
  matter in the process of youth (dis)connection?
• Are there regional factors that might be
  addressed through regional advocacy, planning,
  policy development, and/or investment?

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Research questions
Youth experiences of (dis)connection

• Who constitutes the population of older,
  disconnected youth in the capital region?
• What factors contribute to youth (dis)connection
  in the region?

Regional networks and institutions

• In what ways are networks and institutions
  addressing youth well-being and disparities at a
  regional scale?

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Methods

• Youth experiences of (dis)connection
• Adult ally interviews
• Extended adult ally interviews
• Ethnographic case studies with youth
• Regional networks and institutions
• Database of regional networks
• Preliminary interviews with key
  organizations/agencies
• Expanded interviews with organizations/agencies

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Analytical focus

• Youth experiences of (dis)connection
• Population differences
• Geographic differences
• Gaps in support
• Untapped resources
• Regional networks and institutions
• Regional institutional capacities
• Relationships between networks
• Scalar configurations
• Geographies of uneven governance

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Contributions to overall initiative

• Seeing institutions and scale from the
  perspective of youthseeing youth and scale
  from the perspective of institutions
• Grounding data collection and analysis
• Providing a framework for building regional
  institutions, networks, and coalitions policy
  development and advocacy

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• Its important for stakeholders to do something.
  Theres going to have to be a jolt, we are going
  to have to do something different and dynamic to
  make a difference because in many cases the
  programs that we have been putting together, even
  mine, arent enough to make a difference in the
  long run. So whether thats build a community
  center or strengthen the parks and recreation
  departments, get a clinic or, I dont know,
  redevelop the after school programs, whatever it
  is, it will have to be dynamic. adult ally
  interview

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• Healthy Youth/ Healthy Regions
• Participatory youth digital stories

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Participatory youth digital stories

• Purpose and Relationship to other HYHR components

• Identify opinions, concerns and desires of youth
• Understand conditions that affect youths lives
• Engage diverse youth
• Inform and illustrate other HYHR study efforts
• Facilitate sharing of youth perspectives with
  decision makers
• Provide a model of youth engagement, influence
  and action to other communities

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Participatory youth digital stories

• REACH2 Youth Media Projects
• Youth-produced videos from four REACH Coalitions
• Analyzing youth perspectives on health, violence,
  education and other issues

• Youth In Focus1
• Under-represented youth from four regional
  organizations (12-15 youth)
• Youth-led action research focused on HYHR themes
  testing replication

• Youth Voices for Change
• West Sacramentos Sactown Heroes (15-20 youth)
• Understanding, documenting and reporting the
  neighborhood conditions that affect their lives

• 2A Sierra Health Foundation youth grant program

• 1YIF is a non-profit intermediary organization

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Participatory youth digital stories

• Questions
• Exploring role of physical environment through
  themes of education, lifestyle, employment
  civic engagement
• Example questions
• Where do they go and what do they do there?
• What places are important to them and why?
• How can you represent this in a photograph or
  video?

• Methods
• Mapping Workshops
• Individual reflections
• Group discussions
• Mapping activities
• Video tours shout-outs
• Place photography
• Web-based Map
• Linking stories to place
• Ideas for change

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Participatory youth digital stories

• Where we are now
• Youth Voices
• Five weekly workshops conducted
• Spring Fling completed (four full day sessions)
• Photo assignment underway
• Youth In Focus
• Community partners identified
• REACH Youth Media Projects
• Videos near completion

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HY/HR Challenges

• Large, but maybe not large enough
• Missing sectors/ issues (e.g., juvenile justice)
• Missing inter-regional comparisons
• Missing spatial coverage and depth
• Challenges of integration
• Within teams (e.g., institutional and
  ethnographic)
• Across teams Youth Voices with researcher voices

• Framing the region
• A social, territorial, and economic space
• Relevance of the 9-county Sacramento Capital
  Region
• Research into action
• Telling a compelling yet rigorous story
• Ensuring audible youth voices
• Addressing multiple stakeholders
• Replication in other regions