Grace Cotangco

Email: Grace_at_preventioninstitute_dot_org

Grace Cotangco, MPH manages the People, Parks, and Power (P3) national initiative under Prevention Institute’s Healthy Equitable Communities work. In this capacity, she supports BIPOC-led community-based organizations and power-building groups working in urban communities across the United States to increase park and green space equity through local policy and systems change.

Prior to joining Prevention Institute as staff, Grace served on the Community Advisory Board for the USALEEP Powering Healthy Lives Through Parks project, which explored the links between park equity, power building, and life expectancy. Grace also served on the Park Equity Alliance, the coalition of organizations that successfully advocated for over $20 million per year in Los Angeles County Measure A funding to address park inequities in low-income Latino and Black neighborhoods, and that is now holding decision-makers accountable to their equity commitments.

In her earlier work, Grace has led community engagement projects to address the social determinants of health in historically disinvested neighborhoods, with a focus on participatory action research. In this work, she has managed school-based youth leadership programs, and advocated for equitable public policies related to parks and open space, food justice, mobility, and community safety.

Grace currently serves on the [community%20prevention%20and%20population%20health%20task%20force]Los Angeles County Community Prevention and Population Health Task Force – an advisory body to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors – where she chairs the Healthy and Equitable Land Use ad hoc committee.