Personal stories: voices of Latino youth health advocates in a diabetes prevention initiative.

The YMCA-Silicon Valley Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) U.S. Proyecto Movimiento (PM) Action Community project is a community-based partnership that aims to reduce the prevalence of diabetes among Latinos in the Greater Gilroy, California, area by delivering a prevention campaign across generations. A critical component of PM has been the creation of a Youth Health Advocate (YHA) afterschool club at three public high schools in Gilroy. The YHAs, who are trained on health, nutrition, diabetes, basic leadership skills, and digital storytelling, are at the forefront of the campaign targeting Gilroy youth. In their own words, the YHAs describe why they decided to become a YHA, the positive health impact of YHA activities on themselves and their family, and the positive impact on burgeoning leadership skills. The voices of YHAs in this prevention campaigns have brought value to the PM evaluation, and this qualitative element bears further examination in other community-based prevention campaigns.