The Community Power Network (CPN) (formerly the Peer Learning Network) is an ongoing multicultural, multiracial forum on the potential for systems alignment initiatives to improve outcomes for communities. The CPN builds community power to uplift lived experience, Indigenous and cultural wisdom...

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.

The United States spends more money on healthcare than other developed countries while experiencing significantly worse health outcomes, indicating a need to explore health drivers other than healthcare spending. While nonmedical barriers such as lack of adequate housing, education, and transportation are known to influence well-being, how spending that addresses these social needs affects health outcomes is less clear. This study will examine total government spending across both medical care and social service sectors to characterize the impact of such spending on health outcomes and disparities.

Adolescents and young adults often experience their first episode of psychosis as they are preparing to enter high school, college, or the workforce. The long-term implications of neglecting a future generation’s mental health can range from an overburdened welfare system to overcrowding in correctional facilities. Implementing an intervention for first episode psychosis via Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC), the OnTrackNY program aims to help patients maximize recovery, improve social function, and manage their psychiatric symptoms.

This study, funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Systems for Action research program, will assess the feasibility of implementing a community co-designed initiative that integrates health, social, public safety, and justice services under a single local government umbrella agency. The initiative focuses on improving the health, safety, and wellbeing of communities harmed by systemic racism and to reduce involvement in the criminal legal system.

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.