Youth4Health is a community-based research project that seeks to empower newcomer youth to become “health navigators”. Youth from recent immigrant families often serve as bridges between their households and their wider communities. Now, with the widespread availability of powerful information and communication technologies, such as mobile phones, search engines and web-based social networks, there are unprecedented opportunities for youth to network in support of their families while connecting with other youth playing the same role.

Youth4Health will provide training and resources to existing newcomer youth groups, helping them serve as navigators for their communities with the Canadian health care and health promotion systems. The project empowers youth to take this newfound knowledge back to their families and communities – leveling the playing field – by facilitating access to health services for populations that are underserved in areas of priority to newcomers. Youth4Health has focused its efforts on three complex health and social issues identified by newcomers as important to their lives:

1. Youth4Food: Food security and health equity;

2. Youth4Minds: Mental health promotion and addictions; and

3. Youth4Wellness: Wellness promotion for survivors of cancer and complex chronic conditions.

With the support of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Youth4Health initiative is bringing together more than forty health care organizations, local community groups, and academic partners in diverse communities across Southern Ontario: St. Jamestown Toronto, the Waterloo Region and Wellington County.

Youth4Health is an initiative of two University of Toronto social innovation research groups; People, Health Equity, and Innovation (PHI) and the Youth Voices Research Group (YVRG). Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Jadad (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Cameron Norman (Co-Investigator) of University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health are leading this initiative.