University of Southern California Children’s Environmental Health Research Translation (USC CEHRT) staff was invited by Asian Pacific Island Forward Movement (APIFM) to conduct workshops with their youth members around air quality and air pollution. APIFM is a community-based organization serving residents of the San Gabriel Valley, which is heavily impacted by diesel truck traffic passing through the region between the Ports of LA and Long Beach and the warehouses of the Inland Empire. The workshop showed participating students from several high schools in the Monterey Park and Alhambra area about why their communities are considered hot spots and how to measure air pollution using monitoring devices. The overall goal of these workshops is to empower the students to advocate for better air quality policies as they learn about pollution’s impact on health.

“Youth is the future and we’re going to be the ones living in the same environment for the rest of our lives so it is important that we know about air pollution so that we can prevent it rather than just mitigating it” – Jada Lee, High school youth.