STOP COVID-19 CA: Community engagement to address the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in California

Alejandra Casillas; Lisa G Rosas; Savanna L Carson; Allison Orechwa; Gemma North; Mona AuYoung; Gloria Kim; Jesus A Guereca; Christian B Ramers; Nancy J Burke; Claudia G Corchado; Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola; Ann Cheney; Borsika A Rabin; Nicole A Stadnick; William Oswald; Abby Cabrera; Dara H Sorkin; Frank Zaldivar; Wennie Wong; Anusha S Yerraguntala; Stefanie D Vassar; Aziza Lucas Wright; Donna L Washington; Keith C Norris; Arleen F Brown

doi:10.3389/frhs.2022.935297

STOP COVID-19 CA: Community engagement to address the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in California

Front Health Serv. 2022 Nov 30:2:935297. doi: 10.3389/frhs.2022.935297. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Alejandra Casillas¹, Lisa G Rosas^{2

3}, Savanna L Carson¹, Allison Orechwa⁴, Gemma North⁴, Mona AuYoung⁵, Gloria Kim¹, Jesus A Guereca⁶, Christian B Ramers⁷, Nancy J Burke⁸, Claudia G Corchado⁹, Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola¹⁰, Ann Cheney¹¹, Borsika A Rabin^{12

13}, Nicole A Stadnick^{12

14

15}, William Oswald¹⁶, Abby Cabrera¹⁷, Dara H Sorkin¹⁸, Frank Zaldivar¹⁹, Wennie Wong⁴, Anusha S Yerraguntala⁴, Stefanie D Vassar¹, Aziza Lucas Wright^{20

21}, Donna L Washington^{1

22}, Keith C Norris¹, Arleen F Brown^{1

23}

Affiliations

¹ Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
² Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States.
³ Division of Primary Care and Population Health, Department of Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States.
⁴ Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
⁵ Scripps Health, San Diego, CA, United States.
⁶ Laura Rodriguez Research Institute Family Health Centers of San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.
⁷ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
⁸ Public Health Department, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, United States.
⁹ Cultiva La Salud, Merced, CA, United States.
¹⁰ Center for Reducing Health Disparities and Community Engagement Program of the Clinical and Translational Science Center, Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States.
¹¹ Department of Social Medicine Population and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, United States.
¹² UC San Diego Altman Clinical Translational Research Institute Dissemination and Implementation Science Center, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
¹³ Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
¹⁴ Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
¹⁵ Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, San Diego, CA, United States.
¹⁶ The Global Action Research Center, San Diego, CA, United States.
¹⁷ Center for Excellence in Primary Care, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
¹⁸ Department of Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
¹⁹ Department of Pediatrics, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
²⁰ Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
²¹ South Central Prevention Coalition, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
²² VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
²³ Olive View Medical Center, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Sylmar, CA, United States.

Abstract

Objective: To describe the early activities and lessons of the Share, Trust, Organize, Partner COVID-19 California Alliance (STOP COVID-19 CA), the California awardee of the NIH-funded multi-state Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) against COVID-19. The Alliance was established to ensure equity in Coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19) research, clinical practice, and public health for communities most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Study setting: The STOP COVID-19 CA Alliance network of 11 universities and affiliated partner community-based organizations (CBOs) across California.

Study design: Mixed methods evaluation consisting of an analysis of activity (August 2020 to December 2021) detailed in reports submitted by community-academic teams and a survey (August 2021) of academic investigators and affiliated community-based organization (CBO) partners.

Data collection: We summarized activities from the 11 community-academic teams' progress reports and described results from an online survey of academic investigators and CBO partners in the California Alliance.

Principal findings: A review of progress reports (n = 256) showed that teams fielded surveys to 11,000 Californians, conducted 133 focus groups, partnered with 29 vaccine/therapeutics clinical trials, and led more than 300 town halls and vaccine events that reached Californians from communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Survey responses from academic investigators and CBO partners emphasized the importance of learning from the successes and challenges of the California Alliance teams' COVID-19 initiatives. Both academic and CBO respondents highlighted the need for streamlined federal and institutional administrative policies, and fiscal practices to promote more effective and timely operations of teams in their efforts to address the numerous underlying health and social disparities that predispose their communities to higher rates of, and poor outcomes from, COVID-19.

Conclusions: STOP COVID-19 CA represents a new and potentially sustainable statewide community engagement model for addressing health disparities in multiethnic/multicultural and geographically dispersed communities.

Keywords: COVID-19; community engagement (CE); community partnered participatory research (CPPR); health disparities; social determinant of health; state health policies.

Copyright © 2022 Casillas, Rosas, Carson, Orechwa, North, AuYoung, Kim, Guereca, Ramers, Burke, Corchado, Aguilar-Gaxiola, Cheney, Rabin, Stadnick, Oswald, Cabrera, Sorkin, Zaldivar, Wong, Yerraguntala, Vassar, Wright, Washington, Norris and Brown.