Center for Community Engagement

Maternal mental health is a critical component of overall well-being for mothers and their families, yet it is often influenced by a complex array of factors beyond biological and psychological considerations. Among these, sociocultural influences play a significant role in shaping maternal mental health outcomes. This paper explores the impact of sociocultural factors on maternal mental health, with a focus on how cultural values, societal expectations, and access to support systems shape the mental well-being of mothers. By examining these influences, this study aims to better understand the diverse experiences of motherhood and to identify culturally sensitive interventions that can improve maternal mental health outcomes across different populations.

Housing injustice is prevalent in Los Angeles. To determine how housing injustice differs in distinct areas of Los Angeles, six zip codes were studied: 90210/Beverly Hills, 90033/Boyle Heights, 90017/Westlake, 90036/Mid-Wilshire, 90028/Hollywood, and 90013/Skid Row. Various aspects of housing were compared between each area, and three public data sources and an interview with a representative from Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) were employed. Eviction Data from 2.2023 to 12.2023 from LA City Controller’s Eviction Data showed eviction type, cause of eviction, eviction notice type, and rent owed (LA City Controller, 2023). Los Angeles Housing Department’s ULA ERAP Workbook included data from rental assistance applicants, such as monthly rent, back rent owed, demographics, and area median income (ULA ERAP, 2024). Neighborhood Data for Social Change Platform’s Neighborhood Data for Social Change illustrated percentages of renters and of owners, housing stability, overcrowding, rent burden, and median household income (USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, 2024). Housing injustices were found to differ in the distinct areas of Los Angeles that were studied; each revealed some inequalities, but the lower-income areas, such as Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, Westlake, Skid Row, and Boyle Heights, differed from each other and had more injustices than the higher-income area, Beverly Hills, showing that injustices impact lower-income areas disproportionately. As community-engaged research, these results allow LAFLA’s Housing Justice Hotline volunteers to employ this knowledge as a further resource and a deeper understanding of injustices that callers may experience in the areas studied.

To assess if expanding the right to vote amongst the formerly incarcerated impacts community safety trends, we must have a better grasp of the voting behavior of the formerly incarcerated in California since the passage of Prop 17. Past research has shown that increased feelings of belonging to one’s community have reduced crime rates, making for a more cohesive and well-functioning democracy (Stuart and Taylor, 2021). In turn, this research seeks to examine: What are the effects of having the right to vote on feelings of social connectedness to one’s community for California’s formerly incarcerated population?

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.

This research aims to discover how much the older adults in Central Los Angele have benefitted from an intergenerational community program. In addition, how intergenerational learning has successfully addressed various needs of these older adults because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The need for intergenerational programs has grown significantly over the past two years, with many older adults experiencing loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Intergenerational Programs provide a sense of comfort, relief, and a place where they can feel needed. They also help the older generations think a part of society and give them a sense of purpose and feelings of value. Through various intergenerational activities, the younger generation takes in information that will help them develop their levels of resilience and social identities.

As the rate of homelessness increases across urban centers in America, vast amounts of unhoused people are being criminalized and being subjected to forced displacement by state authorities. Most of the existing literature written on homelessness services focus on formalservices that take place in an office setting rather than on-the-ground outreach. These present insightful learnings, but they do not provide a clear understanding of the process of outreach nor unhoused individuals’ experiences. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative analysis,collecting narratives about unhoused individuals’ lived experiences with formal and informal systems of outreach in Koreatown, Los Angeles. We sought to understand what forms of outreach made unhoused individuals feel supported. We conducted semi-structured conversational interviews with volunteers and engaged in participatory ethnography duringweekly outreach. We inquired about unhoused peoples’ experiences with formal and informaloutreach to understand how these systems differ, what potential improvements can be made, and which initiatives have been successful. We found that unhoused individuals were able to formmore trusting relationships with volunteers than with case-workers due to consistency,expectation management skills, and respect towards unhoused people. Given our findings, future recommendations include partnerships between the formal and informal sectors, further fundingfor formal outreach, and adhering to existing recommendations regarding formal outreach reform.

Previous program evaluation studies that assess alumni engagement are often conducted in university settings, which produce key communication strategies that optimize and enhance alumni engagement in that respective field. However, there is a discrepancy in the literature thatexamines alumni engagement in nonprofit organizations – which may contribute to the lack of alumni engagement. To address this discrepancy, a community-engaged research approach and program evaluation will be conducted in collaboration with the TELACU College Success Program to identify key communication developments and strategies to optimize alumni engagement and foster community among alumni. The next steps include developing and distributing a self-reported alumni survey that gauges their needs and interests within theorganization. The data collected from the self-reported survey will aid in the overall assessment of current communication strategies and outreach methods within the TELACU College Success Program. The results of this study will ultimately, contribute to shifting standard programevaluation methods into integrating community-engagement frameworks and practices for optimal reflection.

In 2016-2018, alarmingly, the opioid epidemic ravaged communities of color. Forty percent of the African American national population misused opioids, which subjected them to unjust labels of “drug user.” The pattern of racially labelling African American communities as “drug users” was not only driven by implicit discrimination, but also carried over to this community’s current abuse rates of marijuana.This pattern of bias have been shown tounderstand the prevalence of marijuana mis-use rates. However, previous studies have not unearthed how marijuana abuse education and initiative creation have contributed to marijuanaabuse prevention in CA. In partnership with South Central Prevention Coalition(SCPC), this research gap is addressed by applying a community engagement research lens to implement effective marijuana education and safe drug disposal programs that can steer marginalized individuals towards marijuana abuse prevention. Through mixed methods data collection, next steps include conducting focus group interviews and devising program evaluation surveys tobetter understand substance user/non-substance users perception on types of programming available in their community as well as the effectiveness of the programming in bringing awareness to marijuana abuse prevention. Final implications will inform the dangers ofmarijuana mis-use through effective community prevention program efforts and further call for a decrease in marijuana outlet production/accessibility to youth communities of color in SouthCentral LA.

The helper-victim relationship is often seen in refugee narratives in which international humanitarian organizations are the helpers and refugees are the victims. However, in parallel to this model is the neglected story of refugee leaderships who have mobilized to provide support for their own community. In this research, partnered with Tiyya Foundation, a nonprofit organization for refugees and displaced Americans, we hope to change the existing narrative by shifting the focus from the mainstream model portrayed by western media bias to the often unseen resilient-leadership narrative. We utilized a community-engaged research approach to explore active engagement from the refugee community through secondary ethnographic interviews. We also conducted a newspaper-based content analysis and we found that media, depends on their political leaning, plays a major role in influencing the refugee story by consistently portrays the harmful narratives of refugees as criminals, security threats, or burdens which often translate into a racist immigration agenda and xenophobic behavior against the community. We hope that this research will help, in a small part, shed new light and bring in new positive refugee narratives.

Mental health and experiences with trauma inform how people interact with the world around them and themselves. The Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI), located in Inglewood, California, is an organization devoted to supporting “youth and communities of color by empowering them to enact social change through research, training, and community mobilization,” emphasizing the importance of system-level interventions. SJLI’s current programs are designed to support young men of color — this community-engaged research project seeks to fill the gap and widen the scope of the organization’s programming to young women of color. Literature reviews and analyses of existing programs designed to support young women of color have been conducted to collate perspectives and strategies for supporting young women; the community members will be included in these conversations. Supporting young women is critical to creating a more equitable and person-centered society, and this work will foundationally invest in promoting such change, specifically on the West coast, where research indicates a gap in programmatic supports.