Policy Analysis: CDU’ s Multilevel Innovative Response to the Pandemic( continued)
medicine mobile health team began providing vaccines to the community both on site and through a mobile health units at local community parks and with faithbased organizations.
In addition to these service-oriented activities CDU also pivoted to include modifications to our curricular activities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included having our Community Engagement in Public Health course develop evidence-based presentations on COVID-19 that were specifically tailored to the social needs of the surrounding the community addressing the pandemic’ s impact on K-12 education, employment, income and worker’ s rights, food and nutrition, housing, shelter and services for people experiencing homelessness, incarceration, and re-entry. As part of their evaluation, the accuracy of the evidence-based recommendations was vetted by clinical and public health faculty and the students then conducted their presentations to members of our community faculty, who evaluated and scored their relevance to local needs.
In the latter part of the course CDU, MPH students teamed up with undergraduate students to develop policy briefs highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on those social factors specific to the South Los Angeles noted above. Our clinical trainees- medical students, residents, and nursing students under the super supervision of our teaching faculty supported our community testing site in the early phases of a pandemic making calls to everyone who tested positive providing both critical guidance as well as connecting to social resources. Now they are a part of the teams that are out doing community vaccinations in our local area and hosting medical information sessions and health screenings as a part of these vaccine and outreach programs.
In addition to integrating our response to the pandemic into our service and educational mission, we are also conducting research projects designed to expand our understanding and generalizable knowledge of COVID-19 as well. This includes four National Institutes of Health( NIH) Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics( RADxSM) grants to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies to address COVID-19, in addition to foundation, and private sector funded projects.
Our research programs include qualitative assessments perceptions of testing, contact tracing, and vaccine hesitancy; quantitative analyses include assessing geo-coded associations of healthcare resources and community and contextual factors with COVID-19 related infections and outcomes with additional development simulation models from these analyses to inform policies; and action-based research models training health advocates from faith-based organizations, public housing communities, and mental health and social services organization with subsequent assessments of the impact of these advocates on behavior change on community member on vaccine acceptance and chronic disease screening and care. We are also engaged in recruiting for, and conducting, clinical trials for vaccines.
We are now in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic with hopes that the worst of it is behind us. The CDU response balancing service, education, and research can serve as an example of how an academic institution can prioritize training and research excellence alongside actions that are consistent with our mission of social justice and health equity.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 22