The purpose of this research project is to develop a multidisciplinary research team at the California State University, Fresno to study how active travel and green infrastructures can be better planned to improve residents' mental wellbeing through a combination of crowdsourcing technology and traditional survey questionnaires and interviews. The study will focus on residents in disadvantaged communities in Fresno, California. This study aims to contribute to the field and the society in several ways. First, the findings of this study will advance understanding of the relationship between urban infrastructure, people's travel and park use behavior, and public health, particularly mental health. Second, this study will be able to propose urban policy solutions to health and infrastructure inequalities that plague many American cities, particularly those disadvantaged communities in small- and medium-sized cities. Third, this project will support a strong interdisciplinary research team at the California State University Fresno, a minority-serving institution and a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution. In addition to this research project, the research team will facilitate local initiatives to promote public health and social equity through continuing community engagement and student training.

This research project will allow the group to build an interdisciplinary, socio-technical research team that is able to use a combination of crowdsourcing technology and traditional survey and interview to investigate the connections between active travel and green infrastructure and mental wellbeing. The crowdsourcing technology will allow the research team to collect data at finer spatial scales in a real-time fashion. An online database will also be developed to store the real-time data that will be collected through the crowdsourcing technology. The team will also engage and interview local elected officials and staff as well as residents in the studied communities. The interview will help them to understand these perspectives regarding how the active travel and green infrastructure in studied communities can be improved. A public workshop will be designed to further to broaden engagement.