2023
Strengthening services for undocumented students in a Post-DACA World
PI: Leisy Abrego (Chicana/o and Central American Studies)
Co-PIs: Luis Arturo Corrales (Academic Advancement Program), Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas (Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI))
UCLA’s move toward federal designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) requires student-centered policies and programs to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for all students, including those who are undocumented. In 2023, undocumented college students face a new and highly challenging political moment as most undocumented high school graduates are ineligible for DACA. Using anonymous administrative data and in-depth interviews with undocumented students, our research team, composed of educators, researchers, current and former undocumented students will investigate: 1. What are the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the current undocumented student population at UCLA. 2. How are the new federal policies and practices affecting UCLA students? 3. What are the existing structures of “servingness” to support undocumented students in this new landscape and what new structures are needed? This study will be the first step to secure state and philanthropic grants to conduct a UC-wide study to improve services for undocumented students statewide.
Teaching Latinidad: How Latinx Teachers Racialize
PI: Laura Chavez-Moreno (Chicana/o and Central American Studies)
What ideas do Latinx teachers transmit in their teaching about what is Latinidad? This ethnographic project juxtaposes two majority-Latinx urban school districts with different sociopolitical histories and schooling policies (Arizona and California). The comparative analysis of two contexts demonstrates how teachers’ practices construct Latinidad in relation to other categories. The project highlights each context’s particularities, as each context’s politics, classroom practices, and policies impinge upon its local schools’ teacher practices and opportunities for educational justice.
Examining Mobile Health Applications to Extend Access to Ophthalmic Care to Underserved Rural Communities
PI: Anne L. Coleman (Ophthalmology)
Co-PI: Gerardo Moreno (Family Medicine)
Migrant farmworkers represent an important underserved population with uniquely hazardous occupational exposures and health risks who are often hidden from traditional lines of clinical research and community outreach efforts. Not only do Latinx farmworkers face challenging social and legal obstacles, but they also carry increased risk of vision-threatening conditions such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Unfortunately, children of farmworkers similarly have increased risk of vision impairment compared to peers. With Aim 1 of this proposal, we will measure the prevalence of vision impairment in adult and child farmworkers in rural Kern County, California, using mobile health technologies to extend and expand ophthalmic care. Furthermore, with only 6.3% of resident ophthalmologists identifying as underrepresented in medicine, ophthalmology is the least diverse residency specialty. With Aim 2 of this proposal, we will increase Latinx representation in the ophthalmology through the design of meaningful experiences to expose students to ophthalmology and community-based research.
Investigating Familial Relationships, Neural Circuitry, and Anxiety in Latinx Youth
PI: Adriana Galvan (Psychology)
Co-PIs: Paola Odriozola (Psychology), Tara Peris (Psychiatry)
Latinx individuals are among the fast-growing minority groups in the United States. Notably, Latinx adolescents face a greater risk of developing anxiety than any other ethnicity. Family cohesion (level of unity within a family) may serve as a mechanism of heightened anxiety in Latinx youth. However, little work has directly compared the role of family cohesion in mental health. The proposed study will explore whether higher family cohesion predicts higher anxiety in the Latinx group. We will also examine neuroimaging data to test whether frontolimbic circuitry mediates the relationship between family cohesion and anxiety symptoms, specifically in youth. Our findings will provide evidence for the overlooked influence of family cohesion on pediatric mental health. Given the low treatment engagement and high mental illness rates found in Latinx individuals, prioritizing the development of culturally competent frameworks that alleviate mental health inequity for ethnic minority youth is of great importance.
Beyond the Music: A Sense of Belonging for Latinx Students in School Music Ensembles
PI: Johanna Gamboa-Kroesen (Department of Music)
Latinx students are routinely marginalized and excluded from majoritized systems and spaces in music education. Prior research indicates that, while Latinx students make up the largest and fastest-growing racial group across schools in the United States, they are disproportionally less enrolled in school music ensembles and may find traditional music ensembles uncreative and limiting. Such findings contrast current studies in music education that suggest school-based bands and orchestras are often an environment where students feel a sense of belonging. This mixed-methods study investigates the disconnect between the cultural traditions of music in the Latinx community and the limited participation of Latinx students in school music programs. With implications for increasing a student's sense of belonging at school, the benefit of increased Latinx student music involvement may be reciprocal, enriching both the school experience of Latinx students and connecting school music programs with their Latinx community.
Leveraging Early Head Start Programs to Effectively Address Childhood Obesity
PI: Alma Guerrero (Pediatrics)
Co-PI: Delia Vicente (Pediatrics)
The goal of this study is to integrate and evaluate an evidence-based childhood obesity intervention into UCLA's Early Head Start (EHS) program which currently serves a largely low-income Latino population residing in the San Fernando Valley. Using the EHS model of weekly home visitations to support early childhood health and development, the obesity intervention program will be delivered to caregivers of young Latino children over an 8-week period. The overall research question is whether a childhood obesity intervention that focuses on building parent and nutrition skills can be integrated into an EHS home visitation program in order to improve child BMI, and early dietary and physical activity habits. The proposed study has the potential to identify an effective childhood obesity intervention that can be easily scaled for widespread dissemination across Early Head Start programs and have major public health impact.
Contextualizing help-seeking of Latina college students experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors: a qualitative inquiry from multiple perspectives
PI: Jocelyn Meza (Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences)
Co-PI: Lilian Bravo (Medicine)
Latina college students are at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) and have low rates of formal mental health help-seeking, leading to delayed identification and worse psychosocial outcomes. To develop effective strategies to serve Latina college students with STBs, we first must understand their experiences of mental health help-seeking, including informal mental health support received from peers/family and formal support received from mental health professionals. The purpose of this study is to a) explore and describe the help-seeking experiences of Latina college students with STBs, and b) identify barriers and facilitators to help-seeking from multiple perspectives (from Latinas themselves and informal and formal support persons). Findings will a) provide essential data to support a larger grant proposal to develop and test a help-seeking intervention and b) have direct implications for UCLA’s Hispanic Serving Institution infrastructure initiative, informing mental health policies on college campuses to promote wellbeing for Latinas.
Adapting and Pilot Testing an Online-Based, Family-Centered, Peer Navigator Intervention to Facilitate Cross-Sector Systems Navigation for low-income, Spanish-speaking Caregivers of Children with Medical Complexity
PI: Jennifer Peralta (General Internal Medicine)
Co-PI: Rebecca Dudovitz (Pediatrics)
Caregivers of children with medical complexity (CMC) face unique challenges navigating the complex, highly fragmented healthcare, education, and social services systems to receive needed care for their child, often leading to high burdens of care and poor health outcomes for them and their families. Current care coordination programs appear ineffective to meet their needs, especially for diverse and minoritized groups. This study seeks to address this disparity through the development of a novel pilot adaptation of Undivided™, an online-based, care coordination, and peer navigator program, to meet the needs of low-income, Spanish-speaking caregivers of CMC. This adaptation will be informed by survey and qualitative data and pilot tested using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement QI framework.
Striving Towards Thriving in Early Careers (STTEC): Building An Early Career Faculty Model of Support and Assessment
PI: Hurtado Sylvia (Education)
While much university activity is directed toward student equity programs and diverse faculty recruitment using internal funds and extramural grants, less systematic effort is directed at innovation in the support of early career faculty. Recruiting, retaining, and promoting junior faculty is critical to our future as a Hispanic-Serving Research University that will provide Latinx students and other racially minoritized groups with research on underserved communities and role models in all disciplines. Using action research, the Striving Towards Thriving in Early Career project creates a support model with assessment metrics to monitor and enhance the success of junior faculty. The changing landscape of review criteria, policies, and studies of diverse faculty career advancement suggests that promotion candidates must prepare early and use informed strategies to demonstrate impact in research, teaching, and service. This proof-of-concept model can be used across the UC system and extended longitudinally in an Alliance of HSRUs.
2022
Latinx 1.5th Generation Immigrants Making Ends Meet in Southern California
PI: Leisy Abrego (Chicana/o and Central American Studies)
Co-PI: Daniel Millán (Chicano Studies Research Center)
Research on Latinx 1.5 generation immigrants highlights their educational experiences, marriage and family formation, and lifecourse trajectories. Yet, few studies have explicitly analyzed how they make ends meet despite persistent income and wealth inequality in the United States. Latinx 1.5 generation immigrants can hold varied legal statuses, experience educational exclusion, and can have limited occupational choices. In turn, they can live in poverty, have fewer social safety nets, and face the socioemotional consequences of economic precarity. However, they can receive DACA, can permanently adjust their legal status, and benefit from public and political support which can reduce poverty and promote upward mobility. California is an ideal site to address this gap in knowledge as the state with the largest population of Latinx undocumented immigrants. This project analyzes how Latinx 1.5 generation immigrants develop strategies to make ends meet in California and contributes to theorizing their everyday experiences and socioemotional wellbeing.
The West LA Youth Civic Empowerment Collaborative
PI: Douglas Barrera (Center for Community Engagement)
The West LA Youth Civic Empowerment Collaborative further develops existing partnerships between the UCLA Center for Community Engagement and youth-serving organizations in west Los Angeles to develop the critical consciousness of students and youth of color. Specifically, we work with the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Club, Mar Vista Family Center, and Safe Place for Youth. The Collaborative provides scholarship funding to UCLA undergraduates to be trained in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) alongside staff members from these organizations. Training is conducted by the Social Justice Learning Institute, a nonprofit organization located in Inglewood, CA. Upon completion of this “train the trainer” training, the UCLA students work with their nonprofit counterparts to develop and implement YPAR programming with youth served by these organizations. In this way, the UCLA students serve as research and activism mentors to their younger peers. The UCLA students commit to participating in the Collaborative for an entire academic year. At the end of the academic year, the UCLA undergraduates join their youth peers in disseminating the findings from their action research projects through a public forum. As part of their dissemination, an expectation is that the research groups will make recommendations for how to address a social issue relevant to the youth and their communities, further empowering all of the researchers as civic actors.
Sleeping Well in a Changing Climate: Heat and Sleep Health in an Urban Environmental Justice Community
PI: Laura Cushing (Environmental Health Sciences)
This study will leverage community-based participatory research to understand whether heat reduces sleep duration and quality in the predominantly Latinx neighborhood of Pacoima, Los Angeles, California. Less than half of Americans get the recommended amount of sleep, with sleep deficiencies disproportionately impacting communities of color. Insufficient sleep over the long term increases the risk of depression, dementia, stroke, and heart disease. Higher temperatures have both been linked to poorer sleep, and climate change is causing significant increases in daytime and nighttime temperatures. We will measure daily exposure to outdoor and indoor temperature among 15 Latinx adults and quantify associations with sleep duration and quality measured via actigraphy and daily sleep diaries. Outcomes will (1) enhance community understanding of climate change and sleep health and capacity to participate in the scientific process; and (2) generate new knowledge about the implications of climate change for health disparities in an environmental justice community.
Cultural Mismatch in Peer Relations: A Natural Experiment in UCLA's Living/Learning Communities
PI: Patricia Greenfield (Psychology)
Co-PI: Rocio Burgos-Calvillo (Psychology)
We will investigate cultural value differences between roommates at UCLA. Our study explores the role of a neglected barrier in peer relations, socioeconomic (SES) disparities. SES disparities are particularly significant for Latinx students because, at UCLA, first-generation college status and low-income backgrounds are particularly prevalent among Latinx students. The eight living/learning dormitory communities at UCLA create a natural experiment. Because these communities vary in their ethnic and social-class composition, our comparison will reveal the implications of ethnic similarity/difference and SES similarity/difference for cultural conflict, sense of well-being, school belonging, and academic outcomes. Based on our past research, we predict that there will be more peer-peer cultural value conflict, more psychological stress, a lower sense of school belonging, and less favorable academic outcomes reported by students residing in living/learning communities with higher SES diversity, regardless of ethnicity. Our findings will have relevance for practices and policies surrounding college dormitory life.
Cultural and Linguistic Adaptation of a Trauma Informed, Preventive Intervention for Spanish Speaking Latinx Families
PI: Nastassia Hajal (Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences)
Co-PI: Blanca Orellana (Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences)
Health disparities researchers have extensively documented how historical exclusion, discrimination, and oppression have prevented ethnic minorities from accessing culturally relevant interventions that could support the healthy development of diverse children and youth. Previous research provides support for the positive impact of the Families Over-Coming Under Stress (FOCUS) Program on parent and child mental health symptoms, parent-child relationships, and healthy parenting practices, including for families that identify as Latinx. However, to date, FOCUS has only been studied in English-speaking families. This project aims to formally adapt and pilot test a Spanish-language version of FOCUS-Early Childhood (FOCUS-EC). Specifically, it will:
- Translate the FOCUS-EC provider manual, family handouts, provider training, and assessment materials
- Conduct an open trial of the Spanish-language version of FOCUS-EC.
Materials developed and preliminary findings will support a proposal for a funding to test a larger, randomized trial to formally test the efficacy of the Spanish-language version of FOCUS-EC.
Intersectional Geographies: Queer of Color Los Angeles and the Politics of Belonging
PI: Juan Herrera (Geography)
This book-length project probes the politics in the making of queer of color geographies in Los Angeles. We know that the city of LA has is a thriving network of services and spaces that cater to a queer demographic. Yet alongside these establishments, there are specific places branded exclusively as queer or color, meaning that the spaces have an understanding that queer people also experience racism, gender discrimination, and classism alongside their experience of being sexual minorities. This book project questions what it means to conceptualize intersectionality through a spatial framework. What are the politics of building intersectional spaces? What identities, institutional formations, and geographical locations are privileged (and/or rendered invisible) in the making of intersectional spaces and movements? I analyze how disparate nonprofit organizations, nightclubs, health agencies, and everyday residents collectively help to constitute and define resources, experiences, and spaces for queer of color Angelenos.
Picturing Mexican America
PI: Marissa López (English)
Picturing Mexican America (PMA) is a cluster of digital humanities projects committed to illuminating the long, Mexican history of Los Angeles that’s been systematically erased through centuries of white, cultural supremacy. At PMA’s core is a mobile app, built in collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library, that displays images of 19th-century, Mexican Los Angeles to users based on their location. Beyond the app, PMA is a research and teaching hub partnering with local organizations including 826LA, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and the Los Angeles Explorers Club. Find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Integrated Care Treatment for Latinx Spanish-Speaking Adolescents with PTSD
PI: Lauren Ng (Psychology)
Low-income, Latinx, Black, and immigrant youth are disproportionally affected by traumatic events and subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, due to structural inequities, they are less likely to receive treatment. The Primary Care Intervention for PTSD (PCIP) addresses health service barriers and increases access to care. The PCIP is currently being evaluated in LA County pediatrics clinics which serve a majority Latinx population. More than 40% of patients speak Spanish as their primary language. However, the PCIP has not been culturally adapted for Latinx communities, or translated into Spanish and evaluated. As a result, more than 50% of the LA County adolescent patients with PTSD are being turned away from the research study and subsequently, the PCIP treatment. The current study expands access to PTSD treatment by contextually, culturally, and linguistically adapting the PCIP for Spanish speaking Latinx adolescents and assesses the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the adapted treatment.
Expanding Peer Mentoring for Patients with Kidney Disease to the Spanish-Speaking Population
PI: Jenny Shen (Medicine)
Co-PI: Alejandra Casillas (Medicine)
This project will expand the National Kidney Foundation’s PEERs Program to the Spanish-speaking community. The PEERs Program is a free, confidential, phone-based peer mentoring program that connects patients with kidney disease to mentors who also have kidney disease and went through similar experiences. We will develop and test the best way to introduce the PEERs Program to Spanish-speaking patients with kidney disease who live in the Los Angeles area and get medical care in the safety-net clinics and hospitals. These patients face many challenges in maintaining good kidney health because of the language they speak, where they live, or their limited income and education. This project will help this community tackle the challenges of managing their kidney health by connecting them with fellow patients who speak the same language and can provide emotional support and advice on how to access resources and information they need to thrive.
