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Michelle Molina, 17, laughs at a joke by a fellow participant at the youth summit during introductions.
A group of youth and youth workers in Jamaica Plain came together in August to talk about health equity and everything that affects it.
“We talked about the social determinants of health, including violence, housing, education, employment and access to food and a safe environment,” said Abigail Ortiz, community health educator for Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center. “There are many factors besides health care that have a huge impact on the health of young people, and that was our focus.”
The students selected education and employment as two of the main factors that can most affect the others. Then, they drafted what they thought would be successful education and employment programs and campaign strategies.
“The students projected themselves two years into the future and penned a newspaper article detailing their programs, and then they worked backward from there to create project plans on how to make the programs happen,” Ortiz said.
The group also focused on ways to address racism and discussed how it affects all of the social determinants of health. “We had a really dynamic group and great discussion that generated a lot of ideas,” Ortiz said.
The students are part of the Jamaica Plain Youth Health Equity Collaborative, a program funded by the Boston Public Health Commission. Southern Jamaica Plain and Brookside community health centers and seven other Jamaica Plain community organizations are members of the collaborative. The data from the youth retreat will inform the next two years of work done by the collaborative.