This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, will assess the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention designed to align medical, public health, and social service systems to support integrated, culturally responsive early childhood care for Latino and farmworker families residing in California’s northern coast in order to prevent and manage early childhood developmental delays and disabilities. The intervention is designed to disrupt systemic racism in early childhood systems that limits access to care for minority communities—including language inaccessibility, fragmented referrals, disinvestment in clinical infrastructure, and institutional distrust—by redesigning access points around trusted community infrastructure.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, will pilot test a school-embedded Point-of-Service (POS) coordination system designed to align medical care, public health, and social service systems for children and families in the historically Black Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The intervention seeks to dismantle systemic racism that manifests as fragmented systems with administrative burdens that routinely delay or deny care for Black families.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, tests a holistic admissions approach in health sciences education at Salt Lake Community College and its impact on the BIPOC healthcare workforce. Higher education admissions have always been fraught with systematic racism, given the equity gaps existing within the standardized tests relied upon in the process. The holistic admissions model involves including representatives from the medical system in the admissions interviews and taking into account a students lived experiences with adversity.

Declines in academic performance often precede declines in health and health behaviors, particularly among minority youth living in economically distressed communities. The social and economic burdens imposed on communities with high rates of mental illness could be alleviated if patients were diagnosed and treated in adolescence rather than adulthood. Many adolescents with behavioral health needs fail to seek early treatment due to lack of access to care, finances, or knowledge of available resources.