Health Promotion and Practice Article

The UCLA Public Health Advocacy Program embeds graduate students in community-based organizations (CBOs) for 9 months, providing experiential advocacy training while expanding the capacity of CBOs serving Los Angeles County and the vulnerable populations they represent. Built on the premise that advocacy is essential to addressing the social determinants of health and achieving systemic change, the program integrates advocacy skills into public health training, practice, and research as a long-term investment in the public's health. After launching the program and serving first as program manager then director, I secured grant funding to sustain it beyond its initial support. As lead author, this peer-reviewed article presents the program's multifaceted approach to building advocacy capacity across three priority populations — graduate students, CBOs, and the broader Los Angeles County community — and makes the case for embedding advocacy as a core component of how we train the public health workforce and foster university-community collaboration.