Community Engagement Projects

PRIME-US Community Projects 2017-2018

Project Title: Tenderloin Safe Passage Senior Program: Community Recognition Assessment

Capstone Students: Sidra Bonner, Mayra Cruz, Kara Harvill, and Griselda Reyes

ABSTRACT

Background: Tenderloin Safe Passage Senior Program was created in collaboration with several neighborhood senior centers in the Tenderloin and Tenderloin Safe Passage (TSP). The program was created in 2015 to increase neighborhood safety and promote senior physical activity. The senior program provides community safety trainings, safe neighborhood escort services, and safe street crossings. UCSF and USF students have participated in creating needs assessments and data collection to inform programming. Previous surveys have explored seniors’ perceptions of safety in the neighborhood and how TSP volunteers can be best utilized to promote safety.

Purpose: Assess knowledge of and perspectives about the TSP Senior Program among seniors who live and/or access services in the Tenderloin.

Methods: A pilot eight-item survey was created in collaboration with TSP staff and subsequently administered at the San Francisco Senior Center during the breakfast hour. Both paper surveys and Google form surveys on an iPad were used, with students recording participant responses. A Cantonese-speaking staff member interpreted for participants who were primary Cantonese speakers. Per the suggestion of Senior Center staff, fruit was purchased to serve as an incentive for participation.

Results: A total of 18 seniors participated in the pilot survey. The majority (83.3%) reported walking in the Tenderloin everyday but only 27.8% of respondents recognized a picture of the TSP Corner Captains. Perceptions of the role of the Corner Captains varied among respondents. However, when presented with the statement “I feel safe when I see this group in the Tenderloin,” 10% strongly agreed, 50% agreed, and 40% neither agreed nor disagreed.

Conclusions: Our pilot experience showed seniors were receptive to the survey during their meal time. Although we brought incentives in the form of fruits (tangerines and nectarines), we found that most seniors were happy to answer the surveys. The surveys were administered using an in-person volunteer to administer the questions, allow for clarification, if needed, and record the responses. We had a combination of hard copies and electronically collected surveys. We found electronically collected surveys were more efficient.

Recommendations: A larger scale administration of the survey should be undertaken in order to get more comprehensive results. Based on our pilot survey, we recommend administration of the survey at senior centers using an in-person volunteer. We recommend collecting survey information electronically using any mobile device, such as iPads or cell phones.

Administration of the survey can also be undertaken on the street, as seniors walk about the neighborhood. We recommend administering the survey on days or times in which the safe passage senior program is not in effect. However, we recommend using volunteers wearing affiliated attire to administer the survey and record the responses. Finally, results should be presented back to the senior centers to keep them engaged and thank them for participating.

Project Title: Tenderloin Cleanliness Project

Capstone Students: Daniela Brissett, Faby Molina, Maria Patanwala, Donald Richards

Abstract:

Background:

Tenderloin Community Benefit District (TLCBD) is a non-profit organization aiming to increase the usability, livability, and sustainability in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco through programming focused on safety and cleanliness. Results of the TLCBD Cleaning Survey conducted the summer of 2014 with businesses and residents showed low performance in waste/sidewalk washing and best performance in litter and graffiti removal. Respondents reported widely that cleaning improved safety. The Larkin Street Association conducted a survey in 2016 of 150 area merchants showing that 71% reported cleanliness as a pressing concern related to safety. In efforts to address cleanliness, TLCBD partnered with the Clean Team (Block by Block) in May 2017 in order to increase access to services of pressure washing, litter collection, and graffiti removal.

Objectives:

Develop a baseline assessment tool (survey) for merchant perspective’s on cleanliness
Analyze cleanliness data from 311 (city data) and Clean Team
Disseminate findings and develop next steps with TLCBD

Methods:

Goal Setting: Met with TLCBD leadership to develop goals and scope of project scope
Data Analysis: Researched past survey data on Tenderloin cleanliness and explored 311 and Clean Team data
Tool Development: Created open-ended survey and administered jointly with TLCBD community liaison in order to inform creation of final survey
Final Deliverable: Based on key informant survey, developed final cleanliness survey with suggested administration plan

Results:

Themes from the four Key Informant Surveys included:

Cleanliness is an issue of concern for Tenderloin merchants
Lack of cleanliness detracts customers and hurts business
Merchants appreciate current services but feel that they are insufficient to have a lasting impact due to degree of uncleanliness in the Tenderloin
Merchants recognize larger related issues that need to be addressed such as homelessness and drug activity to have a larger impact on cleanliness

From 311 and Clean Team data, we gathered that despite profound Clean Team services such as 30 tons of trash pick-up, over 600 blocks power-washed, over 3000 graffiti removals, and nearly 5000 sharps retrieved, there was an overall increase in 311 reporting in the neighborhood in the three months following the initiation of the Clean Team pilot.

Conclusion:

The merchant community identifies cleanliness as a pertinent issue in the Tenderloin and the community is motivated to address it. The diversity of stakeholders (merchants, residents, and City) will require incremental and intentional collaboration. The Clean Team is providing relevant services to fill a gap, but further advertisement and expansion of the services are needed. Next steps will include administering survey and diving deeper into ways to engage stakeholders such as the City into the efforts.

Project Title: Destiny Arts: Impacting Health Through the Movement Arts

Capstone Students: Cohen SJ, De La Torre KM, Martinez A, Ocegueda JA

Summary:

Destiny Arts Center (DAC) provides creative youth development to young people based in movement arts. DAC serves 3000-4000 students each year through its school based programs and arts center in North Oakland. Programming includes placing teaching artists in 25+ schools, after school classes, summer camps, and a competitive youth performance company. Charged with the question “How does Destiny Arts Center impact health?” we spent four weeks learning about the program through participation in school-based and afterschool programming, observations of performance company auditions, and interviews with key stakeholders. We then developed a health impact model supported by a robust literature review. The ultimate aim of this partnership was to increase DAC’s ability to apply for health oriented grants.

Our health impact model breaks down the work of DAC into three main arenas: building positive social environments, creative youth development, and improving mental health. These arenas intersect and influence each other while contributing to improved health outcomes broadly and specifically by mitigating adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Through our literature review we examined how positive social environments build positive relationships and provide the space for the development of social capital which impact stress response, health behaviors, and contribute to decreased risk of chronic conditions like obesity, hypertension. We delved into how youth development, which is bound up in resiliency training, contributes to healthier decision making, community engagement and mitigates the toxic stress of ACEs and their myriad health consequences. Additionally, we underscored how the programming of DAC promotes, the development of reliable social ties, internal locus of control, self-control, and self esteem improves mental health outcomes and positions itself to decrease rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction.

Finally, we examined the evaluation tools that DAC has used at its school-based sites to link the questions students answer to the arenas we identified. We identified a resource with additional, validated questions to enhance the existing survey’s ability to evaluate the most salient levers associated with downstream health outcomes. A standard visit to the pediatrician may not reveal all the health benefits of DAC, but the work that DAC does in the arenas we identify have lifelong implications for the health of its participants.

We strongly believe that DAC’s emphasis on positive environments, youth development, and mental health have powerful health outcomes that benefit its participants and the wider community. We encourage DAC to use this health impact model to advocate for funding from foundations and grantors more traditionally associated with healthcare organizations. To make a more robust case for itself, we recommend that DAC use revised survey questions and track results longitudinally.

Project Title: Demonstration Project @ UC Hastings Everybody Needs Nature

Capstone Students: Elizabeth J., Gianna L., Ashwin B., Joana L.

ABSTRACT

Background. Started in 2009, Demonstration Gardens (DG) at UC Hastings is an environmental literacy and advocacy program based out of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood that offers a variety of program activities including gardening, park activation, teaching through puppetry, and the arts. Through their Garden Stewardship program, participants re-entering the working world receive a stipend to care for a legacy collection of plants and trees that was initially built during the HIV epidemic. DG is also currently working on “Everybody Needs Nature” (ENN), a cross-disciplinary multi-agency environmental health and justice research project which investigates health impacts within vulnerable populations related to access to the natural world in dense urban neighborhoods of the Tenderloin and SOMA in San Francisco (District 6).

Purpose. As medical students, our community engagement project aimed to help with the initial stages of the ENN research, which poses the question: How does sustained access to nature within the urban environment affect individual health and community resilience? The purpose of our work was to inform DG’s ENN research with a health perspective, allow community members involved with DG to interact with the health care system in their neighborhood environment, and to share with other medical students in the PRIME-US program about multiple approaches to community healing and resilience.

Methods. First, background information and a needs assessment were collected at initial meetings with the Program Director. Second, we participated in DG programming activities to build rapport with community members and gain understanding of DG’s impact on their lives. Third, a collaborative approach was taken to determine deliverables, which included the production of a video highlighting interviews of DG’s participants and a literature review on the health impact of exposure to urban green space.

Results. A 7-minute video was produced, which featured interviews with the director and 3 participants who described how working in the garden through DG’s Garden Stewardship program and through DG’s partnership with the Community Justice Center improved their overall health. The literature review resulted in a 6-page report summarizing key studies that demonstrated the association between exposure to the nature in various forms and health benefits on the individual and community level. The video can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGrK_vemoD0

Conclusions. The project demonstrated a successful model of university-community partnership to promote structured inquiry into a community-driven research question and the richness of utilizing community engagement to inform research practices. The project reinforced the concept that access to nature improves health on multiple levels through individual testimonies from participants in the DG program and review of the scientific literature. Furthermore, the Demonstration Gardens is an example of how communities can be empowered to heal themselves from structural trauma.

Recommendations. Future work includes creating surveys based on the literature review to measure the health impact of access to nature among community members exposed to DG programming and broader vulnerable communities in the Tenderloin neighborhood. Both Building upon and disseminating the video testimonials of DG participants to potential funders would increase financial and institutional support for their environmental justice work.

MS1’s – Group Project- Fresno’s Health Pipeline Program: Dr.’s Academy and Jr Dr.’s Academy

Each year our 1st year PRIME-US students partner with UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research (LaCMER) Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy. The Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy are programs based in both middle and high school campuses in Fresno and led by Dr. Katherine Flores. The mission of these programs is : To nurture the development of future doctors and allied health professionals who can deliver culturally sensitive and appropriate health services to the ethnically diverse population of Fresno County, through a supportive and academically rigorous educational program for middle school and high school students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds. Each year LaCMER holds a large conference to encourage the students to pursue careers in the health professions. A key component of the conference is the parent/care giver engagement. Parents/caregivers participate in workshops focused on science education and higher education and pathways to careers in the health field. Our 1st year PRIME-US students participate this annual pre-health conference in multiple ways. The student developed and led an educational session on the anatomy and function of the lungs, asthma, and air pollution for middle school students and their parents/caregivers. The session included a didactic lesson, the building of individual lung models, and the examination of healthy and unhealthy lung specimens. The PRIME-US students also participated in mentoring sessions with high school student and their parents/caregivers. Students shared their personal stories and experiences navigating higher education and answered questions that parents/caregivers and students had about college applications, financial aid, and being away from family. In the last workshop, the students had the opportunity to meet with Fresno State College students enrolled in the Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP). The PRIME-US students answered questions about their paths to medical school, why they chose medicine, and how to navigate the medical school application process successfully

Alexis Velasquez

Alexis partnered with the nonprofit, Mi Mentor. See: https://www.mimentor.org/ This nonprofit’s goals are to develop and support innovative mentorship opportunities that inspire the next generation of healthcare leaders for underserved communities. One of the co-founders and original leaders of Mi Mentor was Mayra Cruz, a PRIME-US student who graduated in 2018. Alexis’s project brought together participants from Mi Mentor and the UCSF Latino Medical Student Association to mentor and support those interested in applying to medical school. They held an event to share interview best practices, specifically around the MMI interview system that many medical schools use in their admissions processes. The event included conducting a focus group of mentees to identify areas of program and event improvement. Alexis also documented the key learnings and tools from this event and put them on a shared internet platform for other volunteers and mentors to use in the future.

Bernie Lim and Nicole Carvajal

Bernie and Nicole created a supplemental curricular program called, the Freedom School. The program was created to fill a gap in traditional western medical training that often does not include diverse perspectives. The program was open to students in the UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program, UCB School of Public Health and UCSF School of Medicine.

The Freedom School seeks to:

(1) create a community and healing space for women of color and individuals dedicated to the intersections of critical theory, intersectional identities, and health justice for all

(2) integrate critical race theory/social justice into medical education and public health practice

(3) educate and engage in other forms of healing (non-Western and indigenous) that are prevalent among communities of color and/or marginalized communities

The programming focused on learning from the experiences and history of health of women of color -- many of whom are oftentimes marginalized from discourse about health -- for exploring the bridges among intersectional identities, public health, and medicine. Medicine and public health oftentimes only convey "broken narratives" of women of color. Instead, the participants in the Freedom School discussed the history and centered the lived experiences of women of color as central teaching points that have been and will be foundational to envisioning a more inclusive medicine and public health practice. The Freedom School also partnered with local community based organizations and clinics to learn about different health service delivery models through the lens of the tenets of the Freedom School.

Daniela Brissett

Daniela partnered with a collaborative of student organizations including “Students for Choice” (School of Nursing and School of Medicine chapters) and nonprofit organizations including La Casa De Las Madres, Planned Parenthood, and the Roatán Peer Health Exchange to host a fundraiser and informational session at UCSF. With donations from Planned Parenthood SF, UCSF Student Health, and La Casa de Las Madres this collaborative offered health education materials on family planning and health relationships; condom and family planning option models were used. They also provided nexplanon (an implantable contraceptive device) and condoms free of charge. Representatives from Student Health and La Casa de Las Madres were present to discuss their services and aid in educating students about available contraceptive methods.

Zesemayat (Zesee) Mekonnen

Zesee partnered with the Health Careers Academy, Samuel Merritt College, and Madison Park Business and Arts High School. Madison Park High School is located in an under resourced community, East Oakland; 100% of the student body qualifies for reduced or free lunch. Samuel Merritt College is a health sciences institution that offers degrees in nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, and podiatric medicine. The mission of the project was to bring the programming of the Health Careers Academy, which provides mentorship, engaging health curriculum, and exposure of the health careers, to high school students. The specific aims of this collaboration were to educate students about science, public health, and medicine through human body organ systems education and clinical correlates, as well as, to model a diverse range of health-related career pathways. Zesee coordinated PRIME-US and UCB Joint Medical Students to participate as mentors to the Madison Park students and facilitate the HCA programing. For their final culminating project the high school students presented an aspect of health that they had researched and learned about to the UCB Joint Medical Program, faculty, students and staff.

Lee Lemus and Brenly Rowland

Lee and Brenly partnered with Lightning Bolt, a grassroots collective empowering vulnerable and under resourced communities to prepare for natural and political disasters. This collective and project included various local public health education advocates in delivering an educational event. Their project was to hold an education session for the community about the opioid epidemic and life-saving interventions. Since the spike in opioid overdoses there is an increasing and critical need for community education on the topic. They shared education about how to obtain and administer the life-saving and highly effective over-the-counter intervention of naloxone (or Narcan), a chemical that reverses the effects of opioids.

Fiona Ng

Fiona partnered with the medical students who are members of the UCSF White Coats for Black Lives chapter and the WISE Health Program. White Coats for Black Lives is a medical student group that aims to end racism and violence and WISE is a local nonprofit. Together they provided health education services to community members of the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Center in the Bayview district in San Francisco. Focus groups were used to assess the interest of the seniors. The educational sessions covered STIs, consent, sexual problems impacting aging bodies, the intersection of faith and romantic relationships, and nutrition. The group reached out to local health focused non-profit organizations in the neighborhood to assist in facilitating health education workshops and peer discussion sessions for the seniors. The goals for the sessions were to improve community health by disseminating knowledge about STI prevention, but also—and more importantly—to empower these older community members to feel more comfortable talking to their healthcare providers about age-related sexual changes, and learning about ways to engage in healthy relationships in their older years. Workshops on nutrition were shared as well. The focus was on health as not just the absence of disease, but rather as physical, mental, and social well-being. The emphasis was to promote healthy, and fulfilling relationships—either platonic or romantic—that can greatly improve one’s overall well-being.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2007-2017

Through community-based project work, PRIME-US students learn about strategies for working directly with underserved communities; provide direct service to these communities; and acquire skills to assist in project development, implementation and evaluation. Skills include community assessment, cultural humility, partnering with community organizations, advocacy and leadership. These projects are supported in part by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation (2007-2014), Hearst Foundations (2015-2016), and Koret Foundation (2016-2019).

PRIME Community Projects 2016-2017

PRIME MS1’s Group Project: Fresno- Outreach Pipeline Program

Each year our 1^st year PRIME students participate in UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research (LaCMER) Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy and Health Careers Opportunities Program annual pre-health conference. The Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy are programs based in both middle and high school campuses in Fresno and led by Dr. Katherine Flores. The mission of these programs is : To nurture the development of future doctors and allied health professionals who can deliver culturally sensitive and appropriate health services to the ethnically diverse population of Fresno County, through a supportive and academically rigorous educational program for middle school and high school students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds. The HCOP program is based on the Fresno State University Campus and has the same mission. Each year LaCMER holds a large conference to encourage the students to pursue careers in the health professions. This conference also includes and supports the parents of the students in order to empower them to help their children to achieve their dreams of becoming health care professionals. In February 2017, our PRIME students revised and delivered an interactive workshop called: “Breath Easy: All about the Lungs which included teaching, model building, and pathology specimen examination. Topics covered included lung anatomy and function, asthma pathophysiology and triggers, and pollution effects on air quality. This workshop was designed for middle schoolers and their parents. In another session, the students also offered their advice and shared their experiences with higher education with high school parents. Their final session was to mentor a group of Fresno State HCOP students. They answered questions about their paths to medical school and why they chose medicine.

Final year Capstone student projects:

Each fall our final year Capstone students do community engaged projects with community partners in San Francisco who have identified a valuable project need that PRIME-US students could fulfill. Students are required to provide oral presentations and written reports to their community partners and to the PRIME-US program. The abstracts are listed below. (Full reports are available upon request.)

Project Title: Tenderloin Safe Passage: A Year in Review

PRIME-US Capstone students: Danny Kim, Michael Mensah, Hai Pham, Angela Suen

Community Partner: Tenderloin Safe Passage

Project Abstract:

Background: Tenderloin SafePassage (TLSP) is the first comprehensive, community-driven effort to address neighborhood-wide street safety in the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin is home to an estimated 4,000 children under the age of 18 and a high concentration of service providers. Currently, TLSP serves several hundred children in the district, connecting 5 area schools and approximately 25 service providers (afterschool centers, housing sites, and nonprofit organizations). Each afternoon TLSP volunteers, called Corner Captains, ensure children can walk safely from corner to corner on their way from school to their after-school programs. TLSP also provides street safety trainings to parents and children and community members, as threats to safety poses a public health problem – causing children chronic stress, fear, and actual injury, and harassment. TLSP has reached a critical juncture in its development. While there is great demand for and interest in TLSP’s service to the Tenderloin’s children and families, as an entirely volunteer program, TLSP is challenged to provide – and increase- those services reliably. In order to meet the ongoing and growing demands of neighborhood residents, TLSP’s steering committee, a volunteer coalition of neighborhood program leaders, has determined to undergo a rigorous strategic planning and evaluation process.

Purpose: To compile, organize, and present data from Aug 2015-2016 gathered from Corner Captains (through the Yammer app) to 1) assess efficacy of safe passage’s intervention, 2) illustrate location of incidents (including drug use, loitering, and feces) 3) determine which corners had the most traffic and the most incidents 4) gather qualitative data regarding corner captain’s attitudes toward their work and 5) organize data regarding youth’s perceptions of the safe passage project. Data is intended to be comprehensible to varied audiences, including stakeholders, corner captains, and potential fundraisers.

Methods: Using an iterative process, shared goals between TSP and PRIME students were reached through weekly meetings. Deliverables were presented at each weekly meeting for discussion, goal re-orientation, and refinement until a final product was finished. Deliverables included quantitative analyses of surveys filled out by corner captains regarding safety and negative activity. Simple descriptive analyses and one-way t-tests were used to assess differences in safety perception before and after TSP patrol. Geomapping of negative activity locale was performed to visualize geolocations of negative activity on the TSP blocks.

Results: Overall, analysis of TSP data showed that negative activity globally decreased by 20% across all patrol areas. Youth perceptions of TSP also indicate that they feel “happy and safe” whenever TSP corner captains are present in their neighborhood. Specific roles of students included: Michael - Descriptive and one-way analyses of survey data, presentation preparation, and data presentation; Angela - Coordinating communication, descriptive analyses of survey data, presentation and data preparation; Hai - One-way analyses of survey data and geomapping of negative activity, presentation and data preparation.

Conclusions: Safe passage reduced negative activity at the most high traffic corners by over 20%. Corner captains unanimously felt they had a positive impact in the neighborhood. Safe passage corner captains were recognized very often by youth, who reported overwhelmingly that corner captains made them feel “happy and safe’”.

Deliverables:

TLSP presentation given to the community 10/19/16
TLSP presentation turned over to Kate
Recommendations (as below)
$500 for program support: Kate will purchase new signs

Project Title: 3^rd Street Youth Center and Clinic

PRIME-US Capstone students: Elaine Lee, Walid Hamud-Ahmed, and Daniel Herrador

Community Partner: 3^rd Street Youth Center and Clinic

Project Abstract:

Background: 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic (3rd Street) is a local non-profit agency in the Bayview Hunter’s Point committed to providing comprehensive healthcare services and youth-oriented programming in order to keep youth healthy and prepared for future educational and vocational endeavors. Three UCSF Program in Medical Education- Urban Underserved (PRIME-US) students collaborated with 3rd Street in order to meet four identified objectives to further the mission and current projects currently underway by the organization.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to assist 3rd Street to meet four objectives: 1) Conduct a focus group with their youth to identify health topics the youth wished to explore further, 2) Teach how to create a podcast to explore these identified health topics, 3) Organize a healthcare student panel and 4) connect 3rd Street with at least one other UCSF-affiliated organizations for ongoing outreach and mentorship. All four objectives were met within the course of one month (October 2016).

Methods and Results: The focus group was conducted in an interactive style where the youth participated in an activity in which they wrote down which health topics they felt were important to share with their friends and community. The participants were then split into three smaller groups, and within these groups, each group selected one health topic to as a subject for their podcast.

The creation of the podcast was done by first providing a brief overview of the structure of a podcast, and then each member of the group was an assigned a role based on their interests. The UCSF students, who assisted with recording, research, and editing as needed, supervised the groups. 3rd Street will distribute the podcasts once finished, and certain students have expressed interest in creating future podcasts, for which they can use the podcasting manual created by the UCSF students.

The healthcare panel was composed of three medical students, two recent nursing graduates, and a pharmacy student. The participants and panelists primarily conducted the panel in a Q&A style after a brief introduction. The 3rd Street youth were provided with the panelists’ contact information so they could follow up with further questions or concerns.

PRIME-US, along with MIMS and HealthLink have agreed to work with 3rd Street to include their participants in future programming, mentoring outreach, and health programming.

Conclusions and Recommendations: Lessons learned with working with organization include how to work closely with a community organization that has their own deliverables, mission, and deadlines. Additionally, the students gained vital skills on how to engage with youth and young adults 12-24 years of age. One specific challenge was working with youth of varying English language proficiency as well as interest in creating a podcast.

Our recommendations include continuing to solicit interests and health topics from the youth at 3rd Street to ensure any future programming is relevant to their interests. We would also recommend further student panels, ideally with a larger variety of healthcare professionals to expose the youth to a wider variety of careers within health care. For future podcasting teaching sessions, more time would be helpful in ensuring the students are given sufficient time to grasp the concepts of how to create and record a podcast.

Project Title: Evaluation of a Community Clinic Volunteer Program

PRIME-US Capstone students: Rand Dadasovich, Tara Gonzalez, Sofia Noori

Community Partner: Women’s Community Clinic

Project Abstract:

Background: The Women’s Community Clinic is a volunteer-run organization founded nearly 20 years ago to provide affordable and accessible health care services to Bay Area women and girls and plays a critical role in the health care safety net system in San Francisco. Since its inception, the clinic has used an innovative volunteer-based business model, the core of which is the volunteer health worker program. This program increases community capacity by helping local women gain the skills and experience to successfully transition to careers in health care.

Purpose: Despite its success, the organization has experienced rapid growth and change because of the ACA and is seeking to evolve its volunteer program. The clinic enlisted medical students from UCSF to evaluate the clinic’s volunteer health worker program and screening process with the goal of increasing volunteer diversity and sustaining volunteer involvement in the organization.

Methods: We administered 10 in-person interviews and collected data from an additional 12 participants online using a standardized survey developed in collaboration with clinic staff and previous UCSF PRIME-US students. Five in-person interviews were conducted with Clinical Services Coordinators (CSCs) and five in-person interviews were conducted with Health Educators (HEs). Interviews were conducted at a local cafe and took approximately 20-45 minutes. Volunteers were recruited through emails sent by clinic staff. In-person interview participants were compensated with $20 Safeway gift cards for their time. Participants in the online survey were entered into a raffle to win one of two $20 Safeway gift cards.

Results: Overall, there was very high level of satisfaction among volunteers, with similar levels of satisfaction among CSCs and HEs. Of the 22 total volunteers surveyed both in-person and online, 95% rated their satisfaction with the volunteer program as mostly satisfied or very satisfied. Eighty-two percent of volunteers surveyed felt their training was either totally adequate or mostly adequate. The most common training request was for improved training on the electronic resources. All volunteers felt competent in their role by the 6-month mark, with the majority feeling component by month 3. Roughly, half of respondents reported that they would be interested in a longer time commitment at the clinic. A minority of respondents identified significant challenges facing the health worker program, including a lack of diversity among the volunteer pool and concern about how an increased time commitment would disproportionately affect volunteers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Recommendations: Our results suggest that the Women’s Community Clinic volunteer health worker program is highly successful and may benefit from minor changes in its recruitment and screening process to increase volunteer diversity. We recommend adding a question about experience working with diverse communities to the volunteer application. Current volunteers recognize the importance of the Western Addition Health Training program and desire more opportunities to engage with this program. We recommend engaging volunteers in the conversations about diversity that staff are already having through the creation of a working group. Consider making any increase to the volunteer commitment optional as an increased commitment may make the volunteer program less accessible to marginalized communities. One alternative to increasing the volunteer commitment would be to assign shifts that are more frequent in the first month in the role to decrease time to achieve competency in role.

Project Title: Evaluation of a Community Clinic Volunteer Program

PRIME-US Capstone students: Rand Dadasovich, Tara Gonzalez, Sofia Noori

Community Partner: Women’s Community Clinic

Project Abstract:

Results: Overall, there was very high level of satisfaction among volunteers, with similar levels of satisfaction among CSCs and HEs. Of the 22 total volunteers surveyed both in-person and online, 95% rated their satisfaction with the volunteer program as mostly satisfied or very satisfied. Eighty-two percent of volunteers surveyed felt their training was either totally adequate or mostly adequate. The most common training request was for improved training on the electronic resources. All volunteers felt competent in their role by the 6 month mark, with the majority feeling component by month 3. Roughly half of respondents reported that they would be interested in a longer time commitment at the clinic. A minority of respondents identified significant challenges facing the health worker program, including a lack of diversity among the volunteer pool and concern about how an increased time commitment would disproportionately impact volunteers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

PRIME Community Projects 2015-2016

Olivia Park, Jolene Kokroko

Olivia and Jolene developed a project with one of PRIME’s longstanding community partners, Youth Creating Change (YCC). YCC is a youth development program for high school students from vulnerable communities in San Francisco. The program focuses on engaging the youth in dialogue about the social determinates of health in their communities. The project goals were developed in collaboration with the youth participants. The PRIME-US student leaders facilitated a series of health related workshops on topics that the students identified as key areas of interest and concern. These workshops were highly interactive and involved reading assignments, small group discussion, and guest speakers. YCC students were asked to do preparatory work on each health topic; they researched the topic, reflected on their personal experience and understanding of the topic, and, then, shared with one another in group discussion and reflection. The final project was an art exhibit of photography, drawings, and T-shirts with silk-screened original designs at a professional art gallery in the Mission District, The Incline Gallery. The YCC students did a Photovoice project through which the YCC students utilized photography to explore health disparities in their own neighborhoods in San Francisco. They learned how to do T-shirt silk screening in partnership with another non-profit. Then, Olivia and Jolene mentored the YCC students in how to curate an art exhibit—from mounting and displaying artwork, creating accompanying exhibit guides, and setting prices for their artwork. The photo exhibit was showcased in a community art gallery and at UCSF’s Multicultural Resource Center. See: http://inclinegallerysf.com/this-is-not-normal/

Simon Chu

Simon worked with The Suitcase clinic, a network of five UC Berkeley student run free clinics in Berkeley, Ca. The clients represent a diverse community of individuals, many of whom are homeless, uninsured, and/or living with complex health needs. This project is a pilot initiative designed to create a new robust communications and referral program between the Suitcase Clinic and Lifelong Medical Care, a community health center. The goal is to offer direct support to Suitcase Clinic clients wanting to access comprehensive and longitudinal primary care services. The medical students collaborated with undergraduate volunteers and Ameri-Corp members to offer clients of the Suitcase Clinic caseworkers to encourage making and keeping appointments at Lifelong. They are also conducting a needs assessment of clients to identify barriers to comprehensive and consistent access to primary care.

Jolene Kokroko

Jolene partnered with one of PRIME’s community partners, Huckleberry Youth Wellness Academy (YWA). The Wellness Academy is a health pipeline program designed to mentor and support underrepresented high school students to succeed in college and to consider a career in the health field. Jolene brought the high student participants to UCSF to hear from a panel of medical students, participate in an anatomy lesson of the lungs and attend a campus tour. The goal was to expose them to UCSF and offer a glimpse into the medical student’s educational experience.

Adrienne Kennedy

Adrienne also partnered with Huckleberry Youth Wellness Academy (YWA) to design a longitudinal tutoring program for high school students interested in health professions careers. Adrienne arranged for a group of medical students to tutor the high school students after school regularly throughout the school year in science, math and other topics of challenge for the students.

Final year Capstone students:

Addressing Health Disparities in Colorectal Cancer Screening:

A Quality Improvement Partnership between Southeast Health Center and PRIME-US

PRIME-US Capstone students:

Danielle Atibalentja, Joe Cartwright, Cleavon Gilman Sarat Munjuluri & Yakira Teitel

UCSF School of Medicine, Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved

Community partner: Dr. Keith Seidel, Medical Director, Southeast Health Center

Project Abstract

Background: The Southeast Health Center (SEHC) is a primary care clinic run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), located within Bayview-Hunter’s Point, one of the most isolated and underserved areas of San Francisco. Despite recent demographic shifts in San Francisco, SEHC continues to serve a low-income, majority African American patient population. Most SEHC patients have public health insurance; 20% of SEHC patients are homeless. Purpose: Within San Francisco as a whole, 79% of adults ages 50-75 have been properly screened for colorectal cancer (CRC); in contrast, only 52% of patients (and 48% of African American patients) were properly screened at SEHC over the past year. The current study was designed to investigate underlying causes of these low screening rates and propose interventions to address these disparities. Evaluation: This study involved two data collection methods: 1) a telephone survey of patients (n=40) who had received a FIT test within an 8 week period and had not yet returned the test for evaluation, and 2) a focus group discussion with medical assistants (MEAs) at SEHC. Survey results were analyzed quantitatively and the focus group discussion was analyzed qualitatively to identify key themes. Recommendations: This study’s findings support a 3-pronged approach to address disparities in CRC screening at SEHC, including: 1) enhancing current outreach and follow up efforts, 2) piloting a “CRC Awareness Month” at SEHC, and 3) conducting further research and collaboration with key stakeholders to address downstream structural barriers affecting CRC screening.

Strengthening the Volunteer Role within a Team Based Care Clinic

PRIME-US Capstone Students: Ben Hayes, Nick Orozco, Joe Luis Pantoja, and Kerri Rice

Community Partner/Project Supervisor: Kemi Role, Director of Workforce and Outreach at Women’s Community Clinic

Project Abstract

Since its opening Women’s Community Clinic has used an innovative volunteer-based business model to provide affordable health care services to Bay Area women and girls. Expansion of the clinic to include primary care services and adoption of electronic health records has made the front desk volunteer role (CSC) more complex and demanding. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the current role of CSC’s and make recommendations to improve upon this role given recent changes. 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted, 12 staff and 1 CSC, to illicit satisfaction with the current CSC role and training. Systematic thematic analysis was conducted to determine major themes across all interviews. Three main areas for improvement emerged, and included increased community building between CSC’s and staff, providing means of longitudinal training and feedback for CSC’s, and eliciting expectations of CSC’s at the beginning of their commitment and meeting these expectations.

Trauma-Informed Training for Tenderloin Safe Passage

PRIME-US Capstone Students: Myrna Mungal, Natalie Terao, Sunny Lai

Community Partner/Project Supervisor: Tenderloin Safe Passage: Kate Robinson, Program Director

Project Abstract

For our PRIME capstone project, we worked with an organization in the Tenderloin called Safe Passage to create a trauma-informed curriculum for the staff and Corner Captains. This need arose from the prevalence of daily exposure to trauma that the Safe Passage staff and other members of the Tenderloin community have experienced and witnessed. Additionally, we updated a trauma resource guide to provide to Safe Passage for community residents needing additional support. In carrying out these projects, we constantly solicited feedback and made revisions based on input in order to best serve the organization. We faced a few challenges during our project. Most notable was the short timeframe that we were given to work with a new organization, but we faced this challenge by taking the time to get to know the organization through meetings, discussions, and debriefs, as well as observations of Corner Captains of the organization in the field, allowing us an opportunity to see and hear first-hand the role of the Corner Captains and the challenges they face. Our work on this project was successful due to a clear concrete discussion of our goals and the items we would produce, assistance from our PRIME director, and drawing upon our own experiences in trauma-related research. Our recommendations to Safe Passage include presentation of the Corner Captains’ trauma-informed principles that they generated during the workshop to Safe Passage’s leadership, training of the Corner Captains to teach the curriculum to community members, incorporating self-care into debriefing sessions, recruiting students and community members to improve the curriculum, and translating all materials into Spanish.

Tenderloin Safe Passage: Senior Safety

PRIME-US Capstone Students: Nicolás Barceló, Jessica L. Chow, Josh Connor, Martín Escandon, Samantha Rawlins-Pilgrim

Community Partner/Project Supervisor: Kate Robinson, Program Director, Tenderloin Safe Passage

There is a clear association between perceived safety, high neighborhood crime, and adverse health outcomes among senior populations. In no other community is this more apparent than in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, where nearly 6000 low-income seniors reside. Tenderloin Safe Passage (TSP) is a community-based, grassroots organization dedicated to making the Tenderloin neighborhood a safer place for children and seniors. In October 2015, TSP partnered with the UCSF PRIME-US medical students to develop a senior safety needs assessment, which will be used to determine which interventions are needed to improve senior’s perceptions of safety in the Tenderloin. For the senior safety needs assessment, the main TSP goal is to answer: How do we improve senior’s perceptions of safety in the Tenderloin?

For the PRIME-US Capstone Project, a group of five PRIME-US medical school students worked together with TSP to address two major objectives:

To provide statistical support for a preliminary survey of senior safety needs that was conducted.
To create a new senior safety needs survey that is based on validated questions from the literature, is user-friendly for seniors taking the survey and for staff who will analyze survey results.

New Latthivongskorn, Miguel Linares

New and Miguel developed an evening seminar open to the entire UCSF community to share information about the experience of undocumented students and the effects of being undocumented on health and healthcare access. The evening presentations included members of a local immigrant rights advocacy program that shared current policy reform efforts, a UCSF researcher, a panel of current undocumented students and further policy updates from New. The goal was to inform future health care professionals on health and healthcare inequities for this underserved community and to educate them about the advocacy efforts taking place to promote health equity. Additionally, health professions students were educated about ways in which health care providers can participate in advocacy and policy.

Yakira Teitel

Yakira developed a project with La Clinica Martin Barro, a student run free clinic. The clinic’s patients are primarily uninsured, day laborers, monolingual Spanish speaking, and immigrants. Student volunteers from San Francisco State University and UCSF School of Medicine care for the clients. The project used art as a medium to engage the clinic’s participants and community members in discussions about health in their community. Yakira negotiated a site for a public mural. She led a process of dialogue and painting with volunteers and clinic participants to create a model community mural that tells the stories of Latino immigrants who live and work in San Francisco’s Mission District. By telling their stories through imagery in a public space, the mural aims to shine a light on issues affecting Latino immigrants, including health disparities, while also celebrating triumphs, resilience and humanity. The mural can be seen on the side of the restaurant, La Palma: Mexicatessan, on Florida at 24^th Street.

Yakira-Community Engagement Community Engagement-Team community engagement project

PRIME MS1’s Group Project: Fresno- Outreach Pipeline Program

Each year our 1^st year PRIME students participate in UCSF Fresno Latino Center for Medical Education and Research (LaCMER) Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy annual pre-health conference. The Doctor’s and Junior Doctors Academy are programs based in both middle and high school campuses in Fresno and led by Dr. Katherine Flores. The mission of these programs is : To nurture the development of future doctors and allied health professionals who can deliver culturally sensitive and appropriate health services to the ethnically diverse population of Fresno County, through a supportive and academically rigorous educational program for middle school and high school students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds. Each year LaCMER holds a large conference to encourage the students to pursue careers in the health professions. This conference also includes and supports the parents of the students in order to empower them to help their children to achieve their dreams of becoming health care professionals. Last year (during the grant period in 2/15), students co-taught health education workshops. This year (2/16), our PRIME students developed an interactive anatomy lesson covering the lung. The workshop was designed for middle schooler’s and their parents. The students also offered their advice and shared their experiences with higher education with high school parents. Their final session was to mentor a group of Fresno State HCOP students. They answered questions about their paths to medical school and why they chose medicine.

Food Access in Bayview Hunters Point

This year PRIME MS1’s participated in a service learning project in collaboration with UCSF’s Clinical Translational Science Institute’s Community Engagement and Health Policy Program. The project examined food access in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. The students work with a community based organization, Southeast Food Access program and assisted in the development of a survey to better understand dietary trends and needs of the community. After drafting the survey questions, the students piloted the survey, and disseminated it at a community health center. The survey participants were given food vouchers for their participation. The vouchers are part of a program that offers community member incentives for purchasing fresh produce at local markets and community farmers markets.

“The Time is Now” group project

The PRIME-JMP MS1 and MS2 students partnered with The Queer Trans Network of Alameda County’s. The students participated in the– LGBTQI Youth Summit – A Time is Now- Thriving Not Surviving. The conference theme was geared to the health of Queer/Trans adolescents in Alameda County. The students worked with the coordinators and youth leaders of the QT Network- to develop a highly interactive self-care workshop and presented it at the summit. Participants developed successful self-care ideas and plans. They also, developed a comprehensive online health resource guide for adolescent youth. They presented this tool at a resource fair held during the conference in order to solicit feedback on its utility.

Angel Rosario and Gabriel Gutierrez

Angel and Gabe continued to do transformative work with Youth Creating Change (YCC), a longstanding partnership between PRIME and young people from the San Francisco Youth Coalition. These young people come from diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco and are primarily from disadvantaged backgrounds. The goals of the project are actively engage young people in activities to increase their health literacy and awareness of factors affecting health that are prevalent in their own communities. Angel and Gabe facilitated students exploring topics including violence prevention, environmental health, mental health and food insecurity. Angel and Gabe also led skills-based sessions to support the students in developing their leadership skills. The students designed health related workshops and, then, delivered the workshops to college students at Stanford who work are interested in working with youth. The students also expressed their ideas through health conscious community art.

PRIME Community Projects 2014-2015

Sidra Bonner and Faby Molina-Torres

Sidra and Faby partnered with Civicorps, an Oakland based nonprofit that serves young adults ranging from 18-26. The organization provides high school diploma, job training, and environmental programming to young adults at very high risk of adverse outcomes. Their partnership centered on a Photovoice project. The participants were asked to learn about, reflect and present photographs and spoken presentations on health topics that the participants and their families face in their communities. This inspiring work was featured by KQED in print and video at: http://blogs.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2014/11/13/through-photos-oakland-youth-focus-on-neighborhood-health-video/

Jolene Kokroko and Olivia Park

Jolene and Olivia partnered with HOMEY, Youth Creating Change, and the San Francisco State University Step to College program to develop a project focusing mentorship and health education dissemination to high school youth. Activities included health education seminars, mentoring and college prep sessions. The high school participants gained project management and leadership skills, while PRIME students learned about best practices in community engagement. You can read about the genesis of this ongoing project at: http://meded.ucsf.edu/prime/prime-us-student-partners-local-youth

Maisha Davis

Maisha partnered with Bay Area Girls Rock Camp (BAGRC). BAGRC is a nonprofit organization that focuses on musical instruction and youth development specifically to girls. Maisha conducted a needs assessment for the organization for them to assess their current programming. This included participant focus groups and surveys. Maisha also looked at enhancing the girls experience by contributing to the much need equipment to sustain their programming.

Andrea Quinones-Rivera

Andy partnered with the Physicians Medical Forum to assist in the implementation of a “Doctors on Board” event. The goal was to encourage and mentor underrepresented minority high school, community college, university and post-baccalaureate students in their interest to pursue a career in the health professions. An additional aspect to the outreach event was connecting with the parents of the participants and answering questions about the college application and admissions process.

Sam Cohen

Sam partnered with San Francisco George Washington High School’s (GWHS) Wellness Center and is worked with the school nurse to develop a survey regarding substance use, specifically marijuana. The goal of the project is to better understand the culture of marijuana use at GWSH. The results will be used by student youth outreach workers to design health education curriculum and activities on this topic.

Olivia Park

Olivia partnered with San Francisco non-profit, SF Skate Club. Their project included developing girl’s health education and leadership development workshop. The 5-session workshop focused on social emotional and health development exercises- examples of topics: healthy eating, exercise, peer relationships. The girls were between 12-14 years old and were referred by school social workers and non-profit youth development organizations. They have been identified as having known risk factors including incarcerated family members, school truancy, low-income backgrounds and/or elevated levels of stress or trauma.

Justin Bullock

Justin partnered with a student run clinic, Clinica Martin Barro that is located in San Francisco’s Mission district. This clinic provides services primarily uninsured monolingual Spanish speakers. Justin’s project focused on health education, nutrition and healthy eating. Some of the workshops offered were classes in English language, nutrition, and how to purchase healthy and tasty foods on a budget. Justin also worked with the clinic leadership to purchase office supplies to keep the clinic functioning and organized.

PRIME Capstone Projects—two related projects at two different health centers (8 Senior Students)

Senior PRIME students partnered with San Francisco Department of Public Health Community Clinics, Southeast Health Center and Potrero Hill Health Center. These clinics wanted assistance with looking at access to the clinic and public transportation and potential barriers to continuity in care. The students developed surveys and focus groups to administer to the patients, staff of the clinics. The outcome of the survey will be used to inform policy and strategic planning for the Department of Public Health and the Department of Transportation.

PRIME Capstone Project (4 senior students)

Senior PRIME students partnered with a San Francisco Department of Public Health Community Clinic, Southeast Health Center, to address disparities in mammography rates for African American women residents of San Francisco served by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. PRIME-US students collected and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data, produced clinical tools, and provided medical assistant training in order to improve mammography rates for African American women.

Carolyn Kraus

Carolyn partnered with The Gathering of Native Americans (GONA) a group of Native American Social Workers and mental health care providers at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to build self-efficacy, prevent suicide as well as substance abuse, and increase cultural connectivity in indigenous communities. Her project involved working on documenting the organizations programming and identified best practices so that their work can be transferable to other Native American communities and health centers.

Wilson Ly and Carolyn Kraus

Wilson and Carolyn partnered with the LGBTQI Suitcase Clinic. The primary target population for the clinic is uninsured LGBTQI individuals that live in Alameda County. Their project centered on expanding the services of the clinic to include rapid HIV testing, counseling and other service areas. The project also involved developing stronger partnerships with Asian Health Services and the Pacific Center for Human growth.

Joe Pantoja and Jolene Kokroko

Joe and Jolene partnered with Alisal High School’s Health Academy from East Salinas, California. The students from Alisal are predominately Latino and from a low socio-economic background. Their project was a daylong event that brought the students to UCSF to tour the school, meet with medical faculty and students from various health professions. There was a cadaveric organ demonstration and opportunities for small group discussion. The goal was to enhance the health academy’s mission of exposure and mentorship for those students interested in a career in health.

Kara Harvill

Kara partnered with the Native American Health Center in Oakland, California. The patients at the Oakland site of Native American Health Center (NAHC), a non-profit organization serve the Bay Area’s Native American population and other underserved populations in the area. This project centered on nutrition and health. NAHC-Oakland currently has a series of weekly Nutrition and Fitness classes to promote healthy choices and disease prevention in a culturally appropriate manner. Kara organized and hosted one of the monthly cooking demos, focusing on healthy foods that are part of traditional Native cuisine. She also provided tips on purchasing health foods on a budget. As an incentive for attendees, they provided vouchers that can be used to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at local farmers’ markets.

Doctor’s Academy and Junior Doctor’s Academy HEAL Conference Workshops (14 first year students)

Fourteen first year PRIME students led workshops for minority and disadvantaged middle school, high school and college students in Fresno on various health education and other topics including healthy eating, exercise and exercise physiology, college application and financial aid processes.

PRIME Community Projects 2013-2014

Griselda Velazquez, Donald Richards and PRIME 1st years (11 students total)

Gris and Donald led this project for their first year PRIME cohort, partnering with San Francisco’s non-profit youth program, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY). HOMEY provides cultural and social awareness activities that empower youth as leaders of change. The PRIME + HOMEY “collective” accomplished several projects related to healthy communities, including health education seminars as well as mentoring and college prep sessions. The high school participants gained project management and leadership skills, while PRIME students learned about best practices in community engagement.

Capstone Project (4 senior students)

Senior PRIME students partnered with the Women’s Community Clinic to conduct a quality improvement project. This project sought to identify ways the volunteer-run clinic can best utilize its Client Services Coordinator position to manage and operate the front office.

Elizabeth Sanseau

Elizabeth partnered with Communitas, a pilot program to support underserved SF/Bay Area medically underserved teens living with chronic illness and their families. Both the patient and parent groups learned coping skills and stress reduction modalities, participated in group sharing to promote engagement with a diagnosis, provided peer support, and benefited from facilitated discussions about some of the more practical aspects of living with chronic illness.

Elieth Martinez

Elieth partnered with a Fresno branch of Clinic Sierra Vista and the Selma Community Clinic, both serving primarily Spanish-speaking farm workers. The project aimed to bridge the language and educational barrier by creating educational health pamphlets in Spanish. Topics included diabetes, hypertension and sun/heat exposure.

Sunny Lai

Sunny partnered with a community health worker who was launching a comprehensive chronic disease management program called the Living Well Senior Program. This program is located in Fresno and targets older African American and Hispanic residents living with chronic illness. The program offers services that include home visits, health assessments, case management, nutrition education and physical education. Sunny participated in developing and implementing these activities.

Uchenna Okoye, Frank Myers, Eric Seymour, Kerri Rice, Especianise Loresca

Uchenna led this project with four of her PRIME-US peers. They partnered with the Physicians Medical Forum to assist in the planning, outreach and implementation of a “Doctors on Board” event. The goal was to encourage and mentor underrepresented minority high school, community college, university and post-baccalaureate students in their interest to pursue a career in the health professions. The group also identified pre-medical students interested in participating in an 8-week community engagement project.

Gianna Le and Kazandra De la Torre

Gianna and Kaz partnered with San Francisco Health Improvement Partnerships, a collaboration of community, civic and academic partners to provide educational workshops on health risks of consumption of sugar sweetened beverages to community-based youth organizations. They identified and targeted youth organizations located in underserved communities where there are high rates of diabetes and obesity.

Josh Connor

Josh partnered with the People’s Community Medics, a grassroots community organization that provides free trainings in emergency first aid in predominantly low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods in Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond, Berkeley, Seattle, and Oxnard. Josh participated in a training conducted in East Oakland focused on empowering youth, including students at Oakland’s Castlemont High School.

Walid Hamud-Ahmed

Walid partnered with the Bulldog Pantry, a student-run food pantry located in Fresno, to host two community health events. The families and individuals who visit the pantry were invited to attend a presentation and discussion on how to prevent, manage and control high blood pressure and diabetes. They were also offered education on maintaining oral hygiene. A healthy picnic and educational materials were provided for all ages, in keeping with the family-oriented nature of the event.

Emma Dobbins, Elizabeth Johns, Joshua Ocegueda and Simon Chu

These JMP PRIME students partnered with the Suitcase Clinic, a student run clinic in Berkeley that offers services to uninsured and homeless individuals. The student’s project focused on quality improvement and the implementation of a revised clinic organizational system. The goal was to streamline efforts to improve operational and clinical care.

Nicolas Barcelo

Nicolas partnered with Health, Education, Recreation and Opportunity (HERO) a youth program in San Francisco geared towards underserved and at-risk youth. The program goals are to mobilize youth and community members towards educational attainment and health promotion. The project promoted unique physical activity exercises that included practicing some of the new Common Core Math standards.

Elizabeth Johns

Elizabeth partnered with the LGBTI Suitcase Clinic, a student run clinic that serves the uninsured LGBTI community in the Eastbay. Her project sought to improve the outreach and marketing of clinic services. This included soliciting suggestions and input from clients to inform future programming. She also worked on establishing an Emergency Medication Fund for clients in crisis.

Marvin Miranda

Marvin partnered with the Latino Medical Student Association to support outreach efforts at their Leadership Conference. Marvin facilitated outreach and support for a number of bay area underrepresented in medicine and 1^st generation college undergraduates to attend the conference. The conference provided mentorship and skills-based activities to encourage and educate undergraduates interested in pursuing a career in the health professions.

Angela Suen

Angela partnered with Tenderloin SafePassage, the first comprehensive, community-driven effort to address neighborhood-wide street safety in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The Tenderloin neighborhood is home to many immigrant families as well as a large homeless population. Her project involved participating in the strategic planning and service evaluation for the program. She conducted community and stakeholder focus groups, and assisted in the development of an evaluation tool to be used as the basis for their 5-year strategic plan.

Adali Martinez

Adali partnered with Mission Girls, a youth community-based organization that works with at-risk and underserved girls aged 7-16. Adali continued our ongoing partnership with this organization to develop health education materials and provide health related workshops. She also served as an advisor for their new peer health education curriculum. The projected included a site visit to the UCSF campus where the girls had the opportunity to participate in hands-on organs demonstrations and listen to a panel of medical students describing their paths to medicine.

PRIME Community Projects 2012-2013

Aurora Gomez

Aurora partnered with the non-profit the Oakland Workers Collective, a program developed by the Street Level Health Project. The Oakland Workers Collective brings together various members for discussion of topics relevant to the day laborer community, including issues related to occupational health and safety. Aurora facilitated an occupational health session and assisted in the research and dissemination of community resources for this population. She also assisted in cataloguing session materials and handouts for future reference.

Capstone Projects (11 senior PRIME students):

Mentoring in Medicine (MIM) - MIM is a non-profit health careers outreach and pipeline program located in Oakland California. PRIME students worked with MIMs young men’s program to revise and implement an interactive health education curriculum. Students also researched content and reviewed existing health education curricula used by peer health educators.
Chinatown Health Center – this quality improvement project sought to identify delays in patient care at this public health clinic in San Francisco.

Joe Pantoja, Elaine Lee (15 first year PRIME students total)

Joe and Elaine led this project for their first year PRIME cohort, partnering with San Francisco’s non-profit youth program, HOMEY (Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth). HOMEY provides cultural and social awareness activities that empower youth as leaders of change. The PRIME students and HOMEY participant “collective” accomplished several projects related to healthy communities, including the coordination of physician shadow days, partnering with community clinics, and producing health conscious community art. High school youth gained project management and leadership skills while PRIME students learned about best practices in community engagement.

Jessica Chow

Jessica’s project continued her project with Alameda County Public Health Department programs, adding Youth Uprising. Participants in these programs were invited to participate in Jessica’s Photovoice project designed to understand the systemic economic inequities and barriers that influence health of young women and mothers of Alameda County, and to empower these young women to act as catalysts for social change in their communities. After the photo sessions were complete, the women will have the opportunity to serve as mentors and co-facilitators for future Photovoice sessions. Participants also participated in a Photovoice Action committee and presented their Photovoice projects at an event with the Oakland/Alameda County city leadership.

Danny Kim

Danny partnered with a pastor at the New Hope Covenant Church, in Oakland and youth involved in the Street Level Health Project. Their project was to create a community event for the neighborhood to: 1) provide health education to residents regarding diabetes and nutrition; 2) screen for hypertension; 3) build a sense of community; and 4) empower youth by providing them an opportunity to take responsibility of planning aspects of the event. The youth to plan and implement the project with youth group leaders and church partners.

Maria Garcia-Jimenez

Maria’s project was developed in partnership with the San Francisco non-profit, Mission Girls. Mission Girls offers services primarily for Latino girls aged 9-17 living in San Francisco’s Mission district. Maria brought members of Mission Girls to visit and tour UCSF. The site visit included a talk from other Latino medical students regarding their paths to medicine and a short health education class on asthma. The students learned the anatomy of the lungs and had the opportunity to examine lung specimens. The goal of the project was to provide exposure and mentorship to the young women of Mission Girls.

Joe Cartwright

Joe partnered with the Starlings SF Volleyball Club. The volleyball club serves 5-8^th grade girls that attend KIPP San Francisco Academy in the Western Addition neighborhood in San Francisco. The volleyball club focuses on introducing and engaging low-income girls to the sport of volleyball. This project involved health related activities with a focus on nutrition and exercise. When the team traveled to San Diego for the Starlings Nationals championships, they presented what they learned about community health, nutrition and their own health habits.

Martha Montgomery

Martha’s project was developed with the Fresno Needle Exchange Program. The project involved putting together custom FitPacks for Fresno Needle Exchange participants. The goal was to improve the health of this community by providing a way to safely and effectively store and dispose of syringes and other injection equipment, preventing needle stick injuries for themselves and improving the health of the broader Fresno community. The project also provided a point of service for health education by the staff and volunteers of the Fresno Needle Exchange. Health education and resource information was included in the packs.

Tara Gonzalez

Tara partnered with the Pacific Center for Human Growth, a program serving the LGTBQ community of the East Bay. The project extended the outreach of the onsite volunteer health clinic by extending its services and hours of operation. She helped to develop a training curriculum for medical students working at the clinic, ensuring culturally competent and sensitive care. Medical students also trained undergraduates and served as their mentors and role models.

Ben Hayes

Ben partnered with the Homeless Youth Alliance to develop a training curriculum (and video) for primary care providers working with homeless youth and young folks who inject drugs. This project (still underway) will improve the quality of outreach and health care services for these marginalized populations.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2011-2012

Marvin Miranda

Marvin’s project focused on the PRIME orientation, specifically our partnership with the Women’s Clinic located in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood. The project centered on a community mapping activity in the Western Addition and the creation of harm reduction kits for the clinic’s substance use street outreach program.

Capstone Projects (11 senior PRIME students):

Mentoring in Medicine (MIM) - MIM is a non-profit health careers pipeline program located in Oakland California. PRIME students worked with MIMs Health Ambassador participants to create an online E-Health curriculum. The project included focus groups, collaborative meetings, content research, a review of existing program activities, and new curriculum development.
Peralta Wellness Center – The Peralta Wellness Center is a student health clinic located on Laney Community College campus in Oakland. PRIME students conducted a needs assessment to inform the direction for future clinic programming. The project included focus groups, a review of existing services, a needs assessment, and interviews with key stakeholders.

Amarindar Singh

Amar partnered with local Fresno and Merced county religious Temples serving large numbers of Punjabi speaking individuals. He set up a Diabetes health education outreach program with information written in Punjabi. His goals for the project were to inform Punjabi-speaking patients about diabetes prevention and management that they would not have access to in most health care settings due to language and cultural barriers.

Josh Connor

Josh partnered with San Francisco’s non-profits POWER’s (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) Bayview Organizing Project and the Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. He developed a community education event to train community members with skills and strategies to advocate for environmental health and human rights. The training focused on monitoring the cleanup of toxic waste at the abandoned Navy Shipyard. The event engaged residents to advocate for a healthier neighborhood.

Martin Escandon

Martin partnered with the student-run free clinic, Clinica Martin Baro, serving the Latino community of San Francisco. The project goals were to incentivize patients to complete their medical referrals to SFGH and to develop health education materials to inform and provoke conversation in the Patient Community Circle, a facilitated discussion among patients waiting to be seen by the provider. The health materials focused on chronic conditions such as Diabetes and Heart Disease, introducing culturally appropriate ways to make healthier choices.

Liberty Reforma

Liberty partnered with the Mabuhay Health Center, a student-run free community clinic San Francisco’s South of Market area with a special focus on Filipino/Filipina Americans. This project focused on health outreach events. The goals of the project included: developing recruitment and training materials for new volunteers; developing and distributing health education materials for future Hepatitis B and HIV outreach events; and providing clinic supplies and health screening kits.

Nicolas Barcelo

Nicolas partnered with the Latino student organizations, Chicano’s in Health at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University, the Latino Medical Student Association, the Latino Pharmacy Association, the Hispanic Dental Association, Voces Latinas, and the Boys and Girls Club to promote a Cinco de Mayo Cultural and Professional Development event. This goal for this event was to provide a networking opportunity for inter-professional health students and affiliated community-based organizations. This event was an opportunity to strengthen existing relationships between youth, undergraduates, and high school participants. There was also a follow-up event with a panel discussion for Boys and Girls Club participants.

Jessica Chow

Jessica partnered with several Alameda County Public Health Department programs including Black Infant Health, Improving Pregnancy Outcomes, and the MADRE program. As part of her master’s thesis project, Jess worked on a Photovoice project, exploring economic inequities and barriers influencing the financial decisions and behaviors of young women and mothers from Alameda County, and how those decisions and behaviors impact individual prioritization of current and future health.

Kerrilynn Rice

Kerrilynn partnered with the non-profit, Health Initiatives for Youth, working specifically with their FABULOUS! Program. FABULOUS! serves LGTBQ transitional aged youth by providing a safe space to promote a healthier lifestyle and community. The focus of the programming was youth development, harm reduction, positive sexuality, and anti-oppression approaches to health education. This project included focus groups to assess and inform the future direction of health programming offered at the drop-in center.

Yolanda Tejeda, Myrna Mungal, Kerrilynn Rice

These three students continued our relationship with San Francisco’s Philip Burton High School Health Academy, working with 10^th graders on their annual Health Science “Fairposium”. Over a three-month period, these PRIME students mentored small groups of high school students to provide guidance and resources for their selected health topics at the “Fairposium”. PRIME students also facilitated an informational medical student panel.

Elieth Martinez

Elieth partnered with a small community church in Lennox, California serving immigrants from Central America, Mexico and Puerto Rico. A large percentage of church members reported chronic health conditions such as Diabetes, Hypertension, Obesity and work-related stress. The project included health screenings and dissemination of health education information. She also designed a session for the youth to learn about careers in the health field.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2010-11

Jamila Harris

Jamila’s project was developed with interns from local pipeline programs, Mentoring in Medicine, and UCSF’s Center for Women’s Excellence Internship program, “Getting Women In”. She requested that four students interested in applying to medical school to attend and staff our PRIME Statewide Conference in October. This provided a wonderful outreach opportunity for PRIME programs across the state.

Abby Burns, Frank Myers, Especianise Loresca, Maria Garcia-Jimenez, and Marvin Miranda

This group project was developed with the students from Mentoring in Medicine, a health professions pipeline program. Together, they developed the goals and outcomes of a mentoring event with PRIME students. The event brought together 50 Mentoring in Medicine participants and 35 PRIME students. The agenda for the evening included an overview of PRIME-US, medical student personal stories, college application and interviewing advice, and social/emotional support for those interested in working in the health field.

Eric Seymour

Eric’s project was developed with San Francisco’s Thurgood Marshall High School. Students were brought to UCSF to participate in a Violence Prevention discussion and workshop. The workshop goals were for students to understand the prevalence and major consequences of youth violence and to identify risk factors and signs of potentially violent situations and lifestyles. Through the interactive workshop, students also developed conflict resolution skills when faced with difficult situations.

Jesus Granados

This project was developed with the Latino Medical Student Association, San Francisco State University, and UC Berkeley Latino undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students (40 participants). Jesus developed a four-hour workshop that focused on the process for applying to medical school. The session included presentations on the application timeline, how to assemble the application, and MCAT preparation, as well as breakout sessions on personal statements and applying to post-baccalaureate programs. After the initial workshop, individual mentoring sessions were also offered. The goal was to equip participants with the support, skills and tools to successfully apply to medical school.

Tamiko Younge

Tami’s project was developed with Lucia Acosta, the parent coordinator at Helms Middle School in San Pablo, a local Spanish-speaking church, and Community Energy Services. Community Energy Services received funds from Contra Costa County to provide free home improvements for low-income families who have family members suffering from asthma. In order to promote the program, two morning asthma education sessions were provided for parents with children or other family members with asthma. The program included basic information on asthma pathophysiology and asthma management. Both sessions were offered on site, one at the school and the other at the local church. The goal was for families to learn more about asthma and sign up for the Community Energy Services Healthy Homes Program.

Maria Garcia-Jimenez

Maria’s project was developed with a San Francisco non-profit, Mission Girls. Mission Girls offers services for primarily Latino girls aged 9-4 and 14-17 living in San Francisco’s Mission district. Maria developed a sexual health workshop with the program director in response to survey results indicating a need for this content. The workshop was both interactive and educational. The goal was to raise their awareness, provide factual information regarding sexual health, and to develop positive decision-making skills.

Ariel Sklar

Ariel’s project was developed with San Francisco’s International High School. The school serves over 160 young people who recently immigrated to the United States. Approximately 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Ariel worked with the PE/Health teacher to offer a two-week experiential education workshop focused on healthy living and eating in San Francisco. She co-facilitated a session on sharing information on local community health resources, introducing students to the forms and processes they may encounter when seeking health services. The second session covered local sources of healthy food. The session included a visit to an urban farm for a workshop on where food comes from and how to access fresh food in the city. They also visited a farmers market at Civic Center, where they bought produce for a group meal that was prepared at their school.

Stephanie Ho

Stephanie’s project was developed with the Berkeley Free Clinic, a volunteer-run clinic providing free care to a diverse clientele ranging from students to homeless individuals. The goal of the project was to raise funds for the struggling clinic that had just lost state prevention funding. She developed a summer mailing campaign with volunteers and clients to solicit donations and provide health education and resources to the local community.

Daniel Irby

Daniel’s project was developed with the Berkeley Suitcase Clinic. The clinic runs three drop-in centers at the General Clinic, the Women’s Clinic and the Youth Clinic in Berkeley. Daniel implemented rapid HIV testing in each of these clinics, a service that was unavailable prior to this project.

Frank Myers, Martha Montgomery, Maggie Dietrich, Stephanie Ho, Ruben Lachica, Liezel Dimaano

This group project was developed with San Francisco’s Burton High School’s Health Academy 10^th grade science classes. Small groups of Burton student’s were partnered with a PRIME student and were assigned a specific health topic. The project spanned a two and half month period, culminating in a final presentation to the school and their families called the FAIRPOSIUM. The PRIME students provided resources and mentorship around the research and presentation of the given health topic.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2009-10

Jenille Narvaez

Jenille partnered with The Mabuhay Health Center (MHC). She requested funds to support the opening celebration and outreach of this new student run, free community health clinic in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. This clinic’s focus is to provide a welcoming space for the Pilipino community and to bridge the gap between annual health screenings and regular medical follow-up with a primary health care physician.

Cami Le

Cami applied for funding to distribute and promote her research project that highlighted how some Asian American communities experience health care access barriers resulting in significant health disparities despite being insured. Cami distributed her research finding to the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) listserv and Asian & Pacific Islander Health Forum listserv, in hopes that one of the organizations would use this information to garner funding for projects to address health disparities in the Asian American communities. She also presented her findings at the American Public Health Association annual meeting.

Bianca Watson

Bianca’s project involved working with Sacramento’s Valley High School Health Tech Academy to develop their annual Health Expo. She used this opportunity to outreach to students interested in entering the health professions. She worked on college prep skills and provided mentorship to the students.

Pocholo Selpides, Chima Nwankwo

Pocholo and Chima designed an outreach event with the FACES for the Future pipeline program in Hayward and Oakland. FACES is a three-year internship program for high school student interested in pursuing a career in the health professions. The event began with a tour of the UCSF and was followed by packed agenda including didactic and experiential learning, as well as interactive conversation with PRIME medical students.

Aurora Gomez

Aurora partnered with the Bay Area Immigrant Student Outreach (BAISO) program. The program was developed to mentor and advocate for young Latino and Chinese immigrants. Aurora conducted a needs assessment with programs participants, developing questionnaires that addressed topics such as health literacy, access to local resources, and educational opportunities. Her findings were used to develop a youth advocacy curriculum.

Antonio Moya

Antonio partnered with the Mabuhay Health Center, a student-run free clinic, to develop the Cholesterol Screening Project. Funds were used to purchase screening equipment and develop innovative programs around nutrition and cholesterol awareness. The project also included data collection to assess cardiovascular risk factors in the Filipino community.

Erika Flores, Aurora Gomez

Erika and Aurora partnered with Clinica Martin-Baro, a student-run free clinic in San Francisco’s Mission district. Project funding was used to identify and purchase effective visual aids and health education materials that addressed prominent health issues in that community such as diabetes care, nutrition and workers rights. Enhancing these materials enabled clinic volunteers to reach out to and educate their clients.

Ann Griego

Ann used her experience starting a community clinic in Central America to develop a guideline on how to start a community clinic domestically. This information was shared with PRIME students.

Najim Mohammady

Najim worked with a committee for The Rebuild Afghanistan Summit. The summit brought together many non-profit organizations that served the Afghanistan community abroad and locally, providing a platform to empower local organizations and build a greater sense of community. The summit also included college and high school students in an effort to expose them to the history and culture of the Afghan people, as well as the health disparities faced by the Afghan community.

Rebecca Lindsay

Rebecca’s thesis project sought to identify risk factors associated with death after release from prison in order to guide interventions targeting this vulnerable population. She was invited to do an oral presentation of the project at the American Public Health Association 138th Annual Meeting. Her goal was to share the findings with the public health community in order to advocate for improved transition services to this vulnerable population.

Nina De Lacy

Nina’s research project was to bring awareness to the procedural risk of prenatal diagnostic testing, especially for certain ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged women.

Margaret Renik

Meg conducted a needs assessment correlating exposure to violence with access to services such as health care, education, and community organizations. The intention was to compile data that could improve community support for at risk youth. The needs assessment included a number of community organizations as well as youth who were being detained or on probation.

Elizabeth Iten

Elizabeth worked with the Suitcase Clinic in Berkeley. The mission of this student-run free clinic is to promote the health and overall wellbeing of underserved individuals through service provision, cooperative learning, and collective action among community and professional volunteers, students and participants. Her project was to work with the clinic to improve the quality of services by identifying the needed clinic supplies and to work with the clients to conduct a quality assessment survey.

Elizabeth Sanseau

Liz’s thesis was a qualitative study of the contexts in which young people live with obesity, through a “VideoVoice” format. The goal was to gain new insights from the client’s perspective to help reverse this dangerous trend. The participants of the study used Flip cameras to record their lives and perspectives on dealing with obesity. Liz also developed a PRIME video that highlighted the student’s perspective of the program.

Alecia Greenlee

Alecia assisted us with planning the PRIME Statewide Conference Committee. She identified experts in the topics of diversity, health disparities, health policy, and community engagement to invite as speakers.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2008-09

J. Bianca Watson

Bianca partnered with Valley High School Health Tech Academy (Sacramento). She worked with the high school students to assist in coordinating their-2nd Annual Health Expo and to continue her outreach efforts with students interested in entering in the health field. This is the second year that Bianca is working with the high school.

Jamila Harris, Mikah Owen

This team partnered with Think College Now School (elementary) in Oakland (Grad students from Samuel Merritt, UCB and UCSF SOM) to assist in the development of a Health Fair/ Health Career Fair. The goal was to inspire young students in the Oakland public school system to consider pursuing a health career by allowing them to meet and hear from graduate students from similar backgrounds.

Monica Hahn

Monica partnered with the Asian Health Services Youth Program. She worked on a Photovoice project focusing on health and social justice issues in Oakland with clients of the youth program. She presented this project as one of the keynote speakers at UCSF’s Department of Family Community Medicine Colloquium.

Stephanie Garcia

Stephanie partnered with the Whites School of the Arts for Community Development (WSA), Good Samaritan Hospital in La Romana and the Dominican Government. This inter-disciplinary team conducted outreach and provided basic medical care for the pediatric population of Haitians to improve health outcomes. Her personal objective was to learn how to deliver care that is culturally relevant and sensitive as a foreigner and with the aid of a translator.

Ann Griego

She partnered with West Berkeley Family Practice. This project was designed with quantitative and qualitative components to study the impact of group post-partum and well child visits at West Berkeley Family Practice.

John Trinidad

John founded UCSF Without Walls, a collaborative effort to strengthen partnerships between UCSF and multiple community-based organizations through educational site visits. These visits were built on a history of “neighborhood tours” conducted in different communities by PRIME-US. The program was designed to educate UCSF learners about the health needs and resources of various San Francisco communities and to facilitate the community voice in educating UCSF learners.

Jenille Narvaez

Jenille worked with a team of students and the Bayanihan Community Center (BCC) to develop a new health center, The Mabuhay Health Center (MHC). By establishing this health center, the goal was to provide a welcoming space for the Pilipino community and to bridge the gap between annual health screenings and regular medical follow-up with a primary health care physician.

Unity Nguyen

Unity helped to organize a local fundraiser for the organization WE CARE. WE CARE is working on a project to bring solar-powered lighting and a communication system for a maternity hospital in an urban area of Nigeria. The benefit was designed to bring awareness to the East Bay Community about the health disparities in Nigeria and gain perspective on the health disparities in their own community.

Rebecca Lindsay

Rebecca worked on a research study that focuses on characterizing the health and risk of homelessness among older adult prisoners that will soon reenter the community healthcare systems. Due to shifting trends such as longer sentences, curtailment of discretionary parole and increases in prison capacity, geriatric prisoners are now the fastest growing age group in US prisons and are by far the most expensive. However, very little is known about the health status and housing plans of this population. Rebecca used the study findings to advocate for this population at the American Public Health Association annual meeting.

Angela Echiverri, Uchenna Okoye

This team took a leadership role in the newly founded statewide PRIME Student Action Committee on Diversity in medicine. The overarching goals were to: 1) enhance the health status of disadvantaged populations in California by improving the delivery of quality care, eliminating health disparities, and addressing the distinct health needs of underserved communities; and 2) increase the representation of students of color in medical school and the physician workforce across the state of California.

David Grunwald

This project was a fundraiser for the Suitcase Clinic in Berkeley. With the recent downturn in the economy, the clinic was experiencing a rise in their numbers of clients and, at the same time, a decline in their monetary support. The fundraiser highlighted and educated the public about the many successes of the free clinic with the goal of keeping the doors open for the summer.

Rebecca Falik

Rebecca worked with an HIV population and HIV policy in Lima Peru. The summer research project was a collaboration between Jorge Zepeda of the SFAIDS Foundation and Hector Carrillo of the SFSU Research of Systems of Prevention and Care. Her personal goal at the end of the project was to facilitate a seminar the PRIME and UCSF medical student body on how one can affect political and medical change at the intersection of HIV, immigration, and underserved populations.

Anna Loeb

Anna partnered with Look to end Abuse Permanently (LEAP) to improve and institutionalize intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention, screening and treatment programs in the safety net clinics that serve vulnerable populations in San Francisco. The work informed her charge to host a Domestic Violence Conference at UCSF.

Jennifer Cameron King

Jennifer partnered with the Berkeley Primary Care (BPC), a clinic in Lifelong Medical Care, a safety-net provider for Berkeley and Oakland. She worked with their team on their youth night. The goal of this clinic was to encourage not only health screenings and urgent care, but also youth empowerment and involvement in the clinic as a part of the community. She also assisted with outreach efforts.

PRIME-US Community Projects 2007-08

Jamila Harris

Jamila’s project developed with San Francisco’s Western Addition Public Health Clinic, Maxine Hall. Jamila worked in partnership with the clinic to re-institute the community advisory board. Its restoration served a vital role in helping the residents who reside in the area and improve services at the clinic. \

Monica Hahn

Monica’s project was developed with Oakland’s Asian Health Services Youth Program. This project used the medium of Photovoice to give digital cameras to youth, encouraging them to take photos that represent what they perceive to be the most salient health and social justice issues in the Oakland Community. Photovoice is a participatory action research method that blends a grassroots approach to photography with social action, and aims to foster social change.

Meg Renik

Meg’s project was developed with San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center (YGC). This project involved working with incarcerated youth at YGC, a juvenile detention facility. Meg worked with the YGC mental and behavioral health staff to assess the prevalence of trauma and mental illness within the YGC population, offer further treatment to the youth, and provide educational opportunities for parents and juvenile detention staff regarding trauma and mental illness.

Brian McPhee

Brian’s project was developed with an HIV-specialist provider in the Correctional Medicine Consultation Network. This project focused on a written paper analyzing barriers to Hepatitis C Virus treatment in a women’s correction institution. This paper was presented at the Annual Academic and Health Policy Conference on Correctional Health, with the goal of contributing to the literature on prison health care.

Ann Griego

This project was part of Ann’s thesis, designed with quantitative and qualitative components to study the impact of group post-partum and well child visits at West Berkeley Family Practice. The health outcomes and patient experiences participating in a group model of well-woman and well-child care was compared with mothers and children opting for traditional, one-on-one care.

Bianca Watson

Bianca’s project was developed with the Valley High Health Tech Academy in Sacramento. This project is to support the high school students by providing needed mentorship with their Annual Health Expo and to begin to organize a mentorship program with pre-health undergraduate students in the Sacramento area.

Nina De Lacy

Nina’s project was developed in collaboration with the Internet World Health Research Center (IWHRC). This project included a group of research studies conducted entirely online to gauge the usefulness of the Internet as a research tool within a larger program that uses mixed methods research.

Jennifer Cameron King

Jennifer’s project was developed with a social worker and the Berkeley Primary Care to create a writing group. The group was intended to provide community support focused on sharing common experiences and providing a positive, reflective space in people’s lives.

Jennifer Cameron King

Jennifer used qualitative methods to explore the impact of supportive housing on the concepts of community, identity and social relationships for recently housed formerly homeless and mentally ill adults in San Francisco. By discussing the role of supportive housing with residents, she hoped to gain a deeper understanding of the positive and negative aspects of housing, as well as develop recommendations for improvement.