Center for Community Engagement

With a large population of their community facing diet-related illnesses, a non-profit organization in Pacoima, California, Meet Each Need with Dignity (MEND), attempts to alleviate the stressors of diabetes on these individuals through their educational programs. While their Diabetes Health Education seems to address the physical health component of diabetes, thisresearch was conducted to explore how MEND is addressing the psychological component to this disease. As MEND’s clients fall under the governmental poverty line, affecting their access to healthcare, MEND serves as a source of relief and hope for individuals facing hardship. Thisposition of opportunity MEND holds to leave a sustainable impact on these individuals is endless and should be utilized to create positive changes within these individuals.

California’s Central Valley communities are faced with the highest pollution burdens andhealth vulnerabilities. Specifically, San Joaquin County residents live in food deserts and are impacted by multiple health disparities, despite the county’s significant contribution to California’s economy through agriculture. To address the intersectionality of these issues, Rise Stockton Coalition developed the 2019 Sustainable Neighborhood Plan (SNP), a framework forsustainable development in Central and South Stockton to translate community concerns into projects and policy proposals. While their community engagement efforts identified community priorities and outlined potential projects to be adopted by the City of Stockton and coalition partners, there has been no evaluation of the document’s impact on sustainable development. Toaddress this gap, this community-engaged research project, in partnership with Rise Stockton, aims to evaluate the 2019 SNP’s influence on the coalition’s program development and strategieswithin the context of the COVID-19 pandemic through informational interviews with coalitionpartners. A semi-systematic literature review will also be conducted in order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the strengths and weaknesses of the framework. Datagathered will be instrumental in further updating the 2019 SNP, including to reconfirm community needs and cultivate efficient project outlines to address those priorities.

High nurse to patient ratios have been problematic across the United States for nurse and patient outcomes. Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which calls for “adequate numbers” of staffing, is ill-defined leading states to act. This research analyzes the various nurse staffing models that strive to achieve better patient outcomes. How do various state nurse staffing laws in acute care settings correlate with health outcomes regarding hospital acquired infections (HAIs)? There has been much research on the impacts of this law over time within California, and the literature is promising. This research suggests favorable patient outcomes with nurse empowered and directed staffing plans for specific units compared to laws that strictly enforced ratios for all hospitals, at all times, and under all circumstances.

Previous studies have outlined the importance of culturally competence practices, such as racial match between client and counselor and counselors’ knowledge of racial issues, for racial minorities who seek treatment for substance use disorders. Racial identities play a crucial role in defining social interactions in correctional facilities and homeless shelters, which have overlapping  population demographics with residents of residential facilities for publicly-funded substance use disorder treatments, suggesting that racial dynamics may also affect clients’ experiences in this setting. This study seeks to investigate the racial dynamics among clients in residential substance use treatment facilities by interviewing clients in a facility in South Los Angeles about their interracial interactions, perceptions of clients of race and ethnicity different from their own and discussing how racial dynamics might affect their progression and outcome with treatment. 9 semi-structured interviews with clients in a female-only residential facility were conducted. Based on analyses of transcribed interviews, clients recounted that racial differences do not play a significant role in their experiences in treatment, especially compared to the street environment or correctional facilities, although racial identities are salient in social group formation. Motivation to recover from addiction and other shared lived experiences facilitate interracial solidarities within the treatment setting. This study suggests that treatment facilities could take advantage of clients’ similar experiences and interracial solidarity to create a sense of connectedness and inclusion in treatment.