Most universities have tried to be forces for good, helping communities that don’t have the same resources. Researchers have applied their expertise to measure the effects of pollution, provide medical care for people experiencing homelessness, and learn what contributes to health disparities among different racial and ethnic groups.
Despite the announced intentions of projects that will highlight community-engaged research, sometimes members of those long-overlooked communities end up being treated more like research subjects than collaborators.
An estimated 2.6 million Californians directly experienced at least one act of hate over the course of a year between 2022 and 2023, according to new findings released by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) in partnership with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research’s California Health Interview Survey.
The CRD sponsored a series of questions that were added to the annual California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) to gain a clearer understanding of the overall prevalence of hate acts across California.
Though Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) experienced negative mental health and economic impacts during the pandemic, for a range of reasons, available assistance programs and resources were underutilized, according to a new report spotlighting how COVID-19 affected NHPIs in California.
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health's Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, co-authored research that found clinical outcomes improve when patients and surgeon's ethnicity match.
The study found improved metrics in a subset of patients; when Hispanic surgeons operated on Hispanic patients, for example, it led to reduced length of stay, by half a day, and fewer readmissions to the hospital.
A team led by UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (UCLA Fielding) researchers has received a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve risk assessment for those suffering from diabetes and related complications.
Dr. Whitney N. Laster Pirtle is an Associate Professor of in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. Dr. Pirtle is trained as a critical race sociologist with interdisciplinary subject area expertise in race, racism, and anti-Blackness; health disparities and health equity; Black feminist sociology and praxis; and mixed methodologies.
Education
- PhD, Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- MS, Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
- BS, Sociology, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI, USA
Dr. Yoshira “Yoshi” Ornelas Van Horne is an exposure scientist and environmental justice scholar. She is the assistant director of Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Fellowship, which trains early career scientists in science communications.
Education
- PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
- MS, Environmental Health Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
- BS, Microbiology University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Born in Lima, Peru, Dr. Angie Denisse Otiniano Verissimo is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health where she earned her PhD and MPH. She completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Integrated Substance Abuse Programs; UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
- PhD, Community Health Sciences; UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
- MPH, Community Health Sciences; UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA
- BA, Biology & Spanish; University of Redlands, Redlands, CA