Emily Dickey, Salmaan Kamal, Michelle Ko, and Supraja Saravanakumar were selected as the grand prize winners of the inaugural UCLA Health Equity Challenge. Read the press release.
Meet all 15 finalists and learn more about their projects.
Angela Rose-David
Project: A culturally tailored bereavement curriculum emphasizing mental health care and advanced care planning for the Filipino American community.
Samantha Deveaux
Project: A training program for health care providers and community health workers working with unhoused pregnant women.
Emily Dickey
Project: A pilot program that incorporates point-of-care ultrasound into street-side services for people experiencing homelessness.
Katie Fruin
Project: A veteran’s garden that increases access to safe outdoor spaces for veterans to heal and gain support navigating post-service life and employment, and access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables to support their health needs.
Samantha Garcia
Project: A sustainable virtual group prenatal care program for pregnant patients at the West Medical Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic (West-Med), providing educational classes accessible to patients in either English or Spanish.
Zurisadai Inzunza
Project: A toolkit used in medical education settings to increase LGBTQIA+ youth and adults’ access to sexual and mental health services and gender-affirming care.
Salmaan Kamal
Project: A peer specialist program that would complement existing jail diversion programs and improve care for people experiencing homelessness and criminal justice system involvement.
Mohammad Khorgamphar
Project: An educational resource for Black and African American parents called the “Birthing Medical Rights Booklet,” so that Black expectant parents would have the knowledge to access adequate care and resources.
Michelle Ko
Project: A culturally-sensitive and culturally-relevant mental health education curriculum that combines a focus on nutrition, sleep, and regular physical activity with traditional Chinese medicine for youth in the San Gabriel Valley.
Monica Le
Project: A multifaceted program that encompasses educational outreach, community engagement, and increased access to automated external defibrillators to address CPR disparities for people who live in public housing.
Bethlehem Michael
Project: A nutrition and food gardening curriculum program for low-income older adults in the South Los Angeles area.
Supraja Saravanakumar
Project: Spill the Chai Ma, a program for pregnant and new South Asian mothers (six months postpartum) in Los Angeles County, focused on dismantling the intergenerational stigma surrounding mental health within South Asian communities.
Jose Segura-Bermudez
Project: An STD self-testing kit tailored to the Latinx and Hispanic community that includes educational and follow-up information in Spanish/Portuguese and connects positive-testing individuals with HIV care.
Monika Shankar
Project: A citizen scientist training program in Watts to transform members of the community into “environmental agents of change.”
Apurv Sibal
Project: A multi-tiered Braille system for vision care education for aging immigrants in multiple languages and tailored to different levels of vision impairment.