A new UCLA study found that since COVID-19 emerged, language barriers have prevented Latino and Asian patients in Los Angeles from making full use of telehealth services.

The research also revealed that Black and white patients had greater ease with video visits — and that some older patients and those with limited access to technology, particularly Latinos, relied on family members to help them access telehealth services.

"About a week before her son died, Heidi Locatell begged him not to go back to living on the streets. Luke, 30, had been homeless on and off since around 2015 and struggled with addiction to meth. He had been residing in a sober living facility for nearly eight months but returned to being unhoused on Aug. 31 and relapsed. “He liked the freedom of nobody telling him what to do,” Locatell said.

The UCLA FSPH Center for Health Policy Research, MolinaCares, and California Health Care Foundation have announced 14 finalists in the 2023 Health Equity Challenge. The competition is an opportunity for UCLA graduate students to identify a health equity issue across Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties, create a proposal to address it, and work with a community-based organization to implement their project.

The AAPI Data Project at UC Riverside and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) released a comprehensive report​ today revealing economic hardships, negative health outcomes and a rise in hate incidents experienced by Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

People experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles who contract COVID are 2.35 times more likely to die than someone in the general population, according to new study by UCLA, USC, and Los Angeles County.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open this month, suggests that homelessness is a unique risk factor for COVID-related deaths and that the likely cause is the vulnerability brought on by accelerated aging among the homeless, the researchers said.

Among adults with disabilities and older adults in California who need assistance caring for themselves and completing routine daily tasks, 40% receive no help at all or get only limited help, according to research by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, led by Dr. Ninez Ponce.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of access to healthcare, and this access is obtainable when a community has access to health insurance, according to work by UCLA researchers that explores insurance coverage in California's Salvadoran-American community.

The report - "Uninsured Salvadorans in California," and published by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture - was released Sept. 15; the most important finding is that immigrant Salvadorans are three times more likely to be uninsured, compared to U.S.-born Salvadoran-Americans.

Health equity has become a priority across various organizations, especially during the past 2 1/2 years. As the COVID-19 pandemic intensified disparities, a spotlight was placed on inequities that have long existed across multiple social policy domains in California and across the nation.

The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health is partnering with Howard University and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to proactively engage historically marginalized and disadvantaged populations, and provide crucial information and resources during public health crises.

Tears are streaming down Nakeya Bell’s face as she listens to students in her IQ Squad program, Amari Haysbert and Jenalyn Phanh, open up about their trauma.

At just 18 years old, Haysbert and Phanh are both young women of color who say their lives were upended by unstable familial structures, housing insecurity and COVID-19 while attending high school.