Rosa Soto

Rosa Soto is the regional director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy where she oversees localized, grassroots advocacy strategies in Los Angeles County that are effective at influencing local and state policy. Ms. Soto works tirelessly to educate state and local elected officials, community leaders, health care providers, civil service professionals and the community at-large about preventing chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease.For more than 15 years, Ms. Soto has focused her passion to empower under-served children and their families by increasing nutrition and physical activity opportunities for children and championing numerous important public health issues including: teen pregnancy prevention, relationship violence, child safety, mentoring, and, currently, addressing the childhood obesity epidemic. Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Soto created and launched the People on the Move Collaborative (POTM) in the City of Baldwin Park where she leveraged community partnerships to make "the healthy choice, the easy choice" in every environment throughout the city. Through her leadership, the Collaborative has successfully advocated for the adoption of model local policies including: a nutrition standards policy addressing snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages, conditional use permit requirements for new stores, a physical activity policy, a citywide smoke-free ordinance, a breastfeeding accommodation policy, and the strongest complete streets policy in the country.Taking the lessons and tools forged in Baldwin Park, Ms. Soto expanded her reach to affect advocacy efforts that ensured the passage of AB1490 (Caldera, 1996), which clarified the definition of statutory rape and punishment for impregnating a minor; SB19 (Escutia, 2001), which set nutritional standards for foods sold in schools; Los Angeles Unified School District's Healthy Beverage (LAUSD, 2002) and Obesity Prevention Motions (LAUSD, 2003); and more recently SB12 (Escutia, 2005), which established the most rigorous nutrition standards in the country for food sold anywhere on school campuses and SB965 (Escutia, 2005), which bans soda on high school campuses. Overall, Ms Soto's work has led to the adoption of the state's child nutrition standards by 10 Los Angeles County cities, as well as two policies at the county level and inclusion in the 2008 movie, Food Inc.Ms. Soto earned her bachelor's degree in political science and international relations from the University of Southern California and lives with her family in Whittier, California. During her personal time, she loves to spend time with her children, write, dance, learn about new cultures, explore new foods, cook and read. (All above as of 7/2012) Show less «