Angelica Johnsen and Alma Lopez were selected as the grand prize winners of the inaugural UCLA Health Equity Challenge, and their community partners, the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and SHIELDS for Families, will receive $50,000 each to fund and implement their proposals, which both tackle critical mental health inequities. Read the press release.
Meet all 10 finalists and learn more about their projects.
Sonya Brooks
Project: Create convivial spaces for Black girls and their mothers/caregivers in the form of virtual dinners used to cook and share intergenerational narratives, navigating through spaces of healing, health, and advocating for their unmet needs.
Lei Chen
Project: Develop a “Research-Practice Consensus” program to connect researchers and community organizations working with older immigrant adults to bridge the gap in health care and social services and build trust and solidarity with each other.
Annalea Forrest
Project: Build an integrative health platform that aims to decrease health inequities and increase the accessibility, availability, and affordability of psychotherapeutic services, trauma informed exercise, and nutritional counseling in Los Angeles.
James Huỳnh
Project: Develop an Intergenerational LGBTQ+ Community Space to bridge the social gap between different generations of Vietnamese, Latine, and Black immigrants, refugees, and their children.
Angelica Johnsen
Project: Develop a de-escalation toolkit for medical providers working with patients who are experiencing mental health crises, providing guidance on de-escalating high-acuity mental health crises and stabilizing patients who are in distress, without correctional measures, such as incarceration, chemical, or physical restraints.
Gwendolyn Lee
Project: Create an obesity and weight management program for adults who obtain health care at Los Angeles County safety net hospitals.
Alma Lopez
Project: Work with community clinics to address gaps and disparities in maternal mental health, including developing a series of workshops for pregnant and recently pregnant women for education on peripartum mental health and recognition of symptoms.
Michelle K. Nakphong
Project: Develop a community-level patient education approach to educate immigrant women about their rights to high-quality care and empower them in their own care, and a health care systems audit and feedback approach aimed at designing a quality improvement program within the health care system.
Bianca Salvetti
Project: Implement an interactive, web-based decision aid on gender-affirming treatment, with balanced information on treatment benefits, risks, resources, and potential long-term effects, to improve knowledge and decisional conflict amongst transgender and gender diverse youth and their caregivers.
Skye Shodahl
Project: Adapt a culturally and linguistically relevant prenatal breast/chestfeeding toolkit that was developed for AANHPI expectant parents-to-be and being piloted in the Chinese and Vietnamese communities to other AANHPI ethnic groups in California.