The Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) was established through Public Scholarship and Engagement (PSE) to recognize and support research that is cogenerated with community partners, is of mutual benefit, and has a positive public impact.
Summer Health Institute for Nursing Exploration and Success (SHINES): A Longitudinal View
Piri Ackerman-Barger, Associate Dean for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Director of Faculty Development for Education and Teaching Professor and SHINES Program Director, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing
Patricia Fernandez, SHINES Assistant Program Director; Graduate Student Researcher, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing
Cecilia Sanchez, Research Program Manager, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing
Community Partners: Capitol City Black Nurses Association, Sacramento Charter High School, Arthur A. Benjamin Health Professions High School, Improve Your Tomorrow, Cristo Rey High School
The SHINES program prepares underrepresented and underserved youth to become successful in their academic aspirations, specifically when pursuing a healthcare career.
The Summer Health Institute for Nursing Exploration and Success (SHINES) program aims to prepare underrepresented and underserved youth to become successful in their academic aspirations, specifically when pursuing a healthcare career. SHINES accepts a new cohort each summer. Students participate in a two-week immersive experience, receive mentorship, and become eligible for a healthcare-focused experience or certificate program. Researchers follow students longitudinally via surveys and focus groups to examine long-term effects. In 2022, a pilot round of SHINES was underwritten by UC Davis Health, with critical collaborative support provided by three local high schools (Arthur A. Benjamin Health Professions High, Cristo Rey High and Sacramento Charter High), two regional nonprofits for urban youth development (Improve Your Tomorrow and Sacramento Area Youth Speaks), four chapters of racial/ethnic nursing organizations engaging Black, Hispanic, Philippine and Hmong nurses, and the City of Sacramento. Survey data indicated that participants were overwhelmingly positive about their participation in the program. For the 2023 SHINES cohort, we have reached out to additional high schools, community colleges, non-profits, and health systems. We are grateful for the opportunity to share our passion for supporting underrepresented youth, developing career pathways to nursing and healthcare, and advancing health equity.
Evaluating the Impact of the Increase in Cash Value Benefit for the Purchase of Fruits and Vegetables in Low-Income Diverse Children
Lauren Au, Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Cassandra Nguyen, Cooperative Extension Assistant Specialist, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Lorrene Ritchie, Director, Nutrition Policy Institute, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Community Partner: Public Health Foundation Enterprises-WIC
The project team will analyze how an increase in the monthly cash value benefit for the purchase of fruit and vegetables in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food program is associated with the diversity of fruits and vegetables redeemed, and how this diversity affects the fruit and vegetable intake of children aged 1-5 years in families served by WIC.
Due to the rising food insecurity during COVID-19, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act increased access to healthy food for low-income families. Through this policy, the US Department of Agriculture temporarily increased the fruit and vegetable (FV) Cash Value Benefit (CVB) of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food packages. This CVB increase has substantial implications for improving health equity in low-income families. This study will examine the diversity of FV redeemed and its association with child FV intake during the augment to the WIC food package by conducting a secondary analysis of a longitudinal cohort of California WIC families from pre-pandemic CVB levels through one calendar year. The primary aim of the proposed project is to evaluate how an expansion of the monthly CVB for the purchase of FV in children ages 1-5 years served by WIC is associated with diversity in FV redeemed; and how diversity of FV redeemed is related FV intake. A secondary aim is to evaluate if there are differences in associations by race/ethnicity and household food security status. We hypothesize that increasing the WIC CVB for a 1-year period will increase the diversity of FV redeemed, and the diversity of FV redemption will be positively associated with FV intake in children. Differences will be observed by race/ethnicity and food security status. Now is an optimal time to demonstrate how additional funds for the purchase of FV can improve variety of FV redeemed, which can positively impact FV intake among millions of low-income children served by WIC.
Gregory Downs, Professor, Department of History, College of Letters and Science
Community Partner: City of Sacramento Mayor's Office
How did the City of Sacramento perpetuate and construct racial disparities in the city? That’s the question that Department of History faculty and graduate students will helping the Sacramento Mayor’s Office research this summer in providing support for the city’s municipal reparations effort.
Already graduate students have researched the displacement of Black businesses and homeowners in what is now Old Sacramento and this summer they will conduct additional research on those business and homeowners and their descendants to trace the impact of those governmental displacements and prepare the city to try to make historically informed reparations.
Although reparations has become much more central in public discussions over the past decade, only recently have local governments—cities and counties—begun to assess their role in displacing and segregating Black people, seizing property belong to Black people, and reallocating Black-owned assets to white-owned businesses. In many respects cities and counties represent the most-promising venue for reparations research, as governments can be more responsive to community concerns, and some are creating viable models for reparations that are likely to be taken up by other governments. By supporting the work of activists and engaged local politicians, History graduate students and faculty aim to further that work and to help further the development of practicable models for other community reparations efforts.
Documenting the Mobile Farmers Market Impacts
Marcella Gonsalves, Lecturer, Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine
Community Partner: The Center for Land Based Learning
This project will document the impacts of the Center for Land-Based Learning's Mobile Farmers Market truck, which provides a reliable outlet for urban farmers to sell produce in low-income neighborhoods.
The Center for Land-Based Learning supports and trains local, small-scale urban beginning farmers in West Sacramento. In 2021, the Center launched the Mobile Farmers Market truck, a large, refrigerated truck that provides a reliable outlet for their urban farmers to sell produce to low-income and food-insecure neighborhoods. While Center staff have some information on outcomes from the Market, they want to understand and document both the direct and indirect impacts of the Market. Thus, this research project will document the Market’s impacts. Dr. Marcella Gonsalves from the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, a student researcher, Dr. Sri Sethuratnum from the Center, and trained community members will work collaboratively on this research project. They will review existing data and interview community members involved with the Market to develop a case study. The case study will help the Center’s staff communicate their impact to others interested in their work. It also may inform a growing number of agencies implementing mobile markets across the country to address food insecurity and improve their local food systems.
Restoring and Rewilding a Q'eqchi' Commons
Liza Grandia, Associate Professor, Department of Native American Studies, College of Letters and Science
Community Partner: ACDIP (Indigenous Peasant Association for the Integrated Development of Petén), a Q'eqchi' Maya grassroots farmers' movement
This partnership with Q’eqchi’ Maya in Guatemala and ACDIP, a Q’eqchi’ peasant federation, will help establish communal forests with culturally significant tree species and jumpstart reforestation in two villages.
Through dreams, ceremonies, and late-night discussions, ancestral Q’eqchi’ Maya authorities in northern Guatemala are developing a new model to re-wild their denuded lands by re- establishing communal forests with culturally-significant tree species. After their member villages lost more than half their territory to land grabs between 1998 and 2010, I developed a long-term partnership with ACDIP, a formidable Q’eqchi’ peasant federation in northern Guatemala, now representing 162 villages. Involving youth enrolled at their Indigenous agroecology high school to demarcate communal lands, ACDIP’s leadership hopes to jumpstart reforestation in two of their best-organized member villages with spiritually significant species like chocolate, incense, and spices for ceremonial foods. With sympathetic technocrats just appointed to Guatemala's land agency, these two communities will likely be the first lowland Q'eqchi' villages to re-communalize their lands under ancestral governance. As they navigate that bureaucratic process, ACDIP's leaders want to begin working with the villages to sketch their land use plans for the future, including the areas/species they want to reforest for village autonomy and climate resilience.
Assessing Soil and Water Quality in Climate-Vulnerable Marin City
Alyssa Griffin, Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, College of Letters and Science
Community Partner: Marin City Climate Resilience and Health Justice
Marin City faces issues of crumbling infrastructure, pollution and disinvestment, leading to high rates of chronic health issues and disabilities. This collaboration will address the community-defined need of testing soil and tap water quality.
Marin City is a community of approximately 3,000 people, 64% of whom are people of color, located a few miles north of San Francisco. Marin County is one of the wealthiest counties in the country and yet, residents of Marin City are overburdened by crumbling infrastructure, persistent flooding, pollution, and perpetual disinvestment. These issues overlap with (and potentially underlie) Marin City having one of the highest rates of chronic health issues (e.g., asthma, allergies, cancer) and the highest disability rates in Marin County. The Marin City community is working to inventory and address the different pollution sources that threaten the community, including contamination in flood waters and runoff, cracked and leaking pipes, historic dumping sites, and the ways that these exposures are tied to negative health impacts. Marin City Climate Resilience and Health Justice (MCCRHJ) is an African-American led environmental justice organization based in Marin City. Through a community needs assessment, MCCRHJ identified soil and tap water quality testing throughout their community as a priority. The collaboration between MCCRHJ and UC Davis will address this community-defined need by collecting, analyzing, and assessing the quality of Marin City's soil and tap water to support Marin City residents' advocacy for their community.
Transgender and Gender-Nonbinary Health: Development of Community-Generated Research Priorities
Miles Harris, Assistant Clinical Professor, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing
Elizabeth Vasile, Director, Health Equity Resources & Outreach (HERO) Program, UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center
Stephen Falwell, Education, Training, and Outreach Lead, UC Davis IRB Administration
Community Partner: One Community Health
The project team will increase collaboration with community-based providers of transgender health services in Sacramento and involve TGNB community members in identifying research topics of significance and importance to TGNB health.
Research on transgender and gender-nonbinary (TGNB) populations has by and large been conducted using a “top down” approach, in which research priorities are identified by funders and researchers, not community members. This project aims to increase collaboration with the largest community-based providers of transgender health services in the Sacramento area, the Gender Health Center and One Community Health, and to increase the involvement of TGNB community members in the generation of knowledge regarding TGNB health. The project team will work with the community partners to recruit 10 TGNB members from diverse backgrounds and experiences to meet in person for a half-day convening. At this convening, participants brainstorm and prioritize TGNB health research topics of significance and importance to TGNB community members. These findings will be disseminated to both Sacramento-area TGNB community members as well as UC Davis faculty and staff members. The products of this project will benefit both TGNB communities as well as UC Davis. UC Davis faculty and staff will receive the expertise elicited from the lived experience of
community members to direct their future work. Community partners and TGNB community members will benefit from the generation of research which addresses issues relevant to TGNB health and healthcare.
Yolo County Basic Income Pilot Program: Understanding the Impact of a Basic Income Program on Community Violence Exposure
Rose Kagawa, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Edith Blair, Graduate Student, Graduate Group in Epidemiology
Community Partner: Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency
This research will investigate how a guaranteed basic income program impacts exposure to community violence among recipients, using the Yolo County Basic Income pilot program as an example.
This study aims to document the impact of a guaranteed basic income program on exposure to community violence among basic income recipients. The Yolo County Basic Income pilot program is an ongoing collaboration between Yolo County Department of Health and Human Services and the University of California, Davis and is the first basic income program to focus explicitly on homeless populations at the county level. The aims of the proposed project include understanding the degree of community violence exposure among the study population and how basic income programs may influence violence exposure among recipients. As basic income programs become increasingly prevalent across the United States, understanding their impact on the experience of violence among those whom the programs serve may provide an opportunity to lift families out of poverty and housing instability while also addressing the challenge of community violence.
The Marchand History Lab: Broadening the California Narrative through K-16 Inquiry
Nancy McTygue, Executive Director of the California History-Social Science Project, Department of History, College of Letters and Science
Beth Slutsky, Academic Coordinator, Department of History
Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor, Professor and Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Letters and Sciences
Community Partner: California Revealed, California State Library
The Marchand History Lab will bring together graduate and undergraduate students, TK-12 teachers and other scholars to learn about historical research using UC Davis' special collections, with an emphasis on Latinx and California history.
The Marchand History Lab will connect the work of scholars more closely with the university’s public service mission. The Marchand History Lab will assemble a cohort of graduate and undergraduate students, alongside TK-12th grade teachers to learn about the process of doing historical research focused on UC Davis’ own special collections (with an emphasis on Latinx and California history making use of the Cruz Reynoso archives). Lab members will participate in a teacher institute in which they will apprentice with professional educators, learning how to teach to TK-12 students around the state. And they will produce an artifact - in the form of a lesson plan, article, or digital exhibit, for example - that reflects their experience with applied history education. The Marchand History Lab will benefit from a partnership with California Revealed, part of the California State Library tasked with helping heritage organizations, “digitize, preserve, and provide online access to materials documenting the state’s history, art, and cultures.” California Revealed will both facilitate teacher and student access to a variety of archival resources in support of individual research projects on the history of California, with a focus on groups and events that are underrepresented in the traditional TK-12 curriculum. The Marchand History Lab will be a space for TK-12 teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, and scholars to collaborate about the process of historical investigation. The experience can serve as a model to apprentice their own students in historical research.
Collaborative Science in Prison Gardens to Transform our Relationship with Nature, Science, and Community
Ryan Meyer, Executive Director, Center for Community and Citizen Science, School of Education
Heidi Ballard, Professor, School of Education
Laci Gerhart, Assistant Professor of Teaching, College of Biological Sciences
Community Partner: Insight Garden Program
By implementing citizen science in a prison context, this partnership will provide people who are incarcerated with opportunities for hands-on science learning and environmental education, which can lead to personal growth, improved prison culture and the development of marketable skills for reentry and community engagement.
People who are incarcerated live in often dehumanizing conditions, lacking access to programs
and opportunities for self-enrichment and mental health benefits, work and life skills, and
connections to others. For more than 20 years, the Insight Garden Program (IGP) has been delivering a year-long environmental education curriculum through which people who are incarcerated lead the design, creation, and cultivation of in-prison permaculture gardens, develop emotional and social skills, and prepare for reentry as empowered environmental stewards. IGP is a nationally recognized evidence-based program that improves prison culture, promotes positive interactions among people in prison and prison staff, builds bridges between racial boundaries, helps participants advance toward parole, and supports the reconnection of people in prison with their families and communities. This project, a collaboration between IGP and the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science, will advance our work on implementing citizen science in a prison context. With citizen science, participants engage in scientific research through activities such as collecting data, conducting analyses, sharing findings, and designing novel investigations. Citizen science can deepen learning, leading participants to create change in their lives, landscapes, and communities. Research and our own experience has shown that people who live in prison are interested in science, desire more opportunities for science learning through hands-on experience, and respond positively to the notion of taking part in real science that involves participants beyond prison walls. Furthermore, developing science knowledge and skills can foster marketable skill sets for incarcerated people, which they may use to analyze and directly address environment- and science-related challenges in their communities and for lifelong learning and literacy in science.
State Paralysis: The Impacts of Procurement Risk on Government Effectiveness
Diana Moreira, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, College of Letters and Science
Socorro Pardo Martinez, PhD Candidate, Department of Economics
Joana Naritomi, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics
Gustavo Fernandes, Assistant Professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas
Community Partner: CONASEMS (Brazilian Council of Municipal Health Secretaries)
This project will investigate why developing countries like Brazil do not spend substantial portions of their budgets on public services — despite clear needs — by examining the role of procurement risk as a driver of unspent public funds.
Public procurement plays a key role in allocating limited budgetary resources to public service delivery. This project studies a puzzling phenomenon: in developing countries like Brazil, substantive shares of the federal and sub-national budgets are not spent despite clear needs for additional resources for public services. In line with a growing literature that documents the potential unintended effects of the enforcement of rules on bureaucratic performance, we investigate the role of procurement risk - when honest mistakes may be misinterpreted as wrongdoing – as a driver of unspent public funds by Brazilian municipal governments. We first use administrative data on spending to document patterns of underspending and relation to anti-corruption initiatives. Leveraging a collaboration with the Brazilian Council of Municipal Health Secretaries (CONASEMS), we will conduct a survey experiment with municipal health secretaries randomizing information that changes perceptions of procurement risk.
Improving Telehealth Access for Populations with Limited English-Proficiency: A Collaboration with United Way California Capital Region
Jennifer Rosenthal, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, School of Medicine
Leah Meisel, Digital Health Equity Coordinator, UC Davis Health
Community Partner: United Way California Capital Region
This project will apply human-centered design principles to engage communities with limited English proficiency in developing strategies to improve telehealth equity and accessibility.
The focus of this study is to apply human-centered design principles to engage community members with emergent/limited English-proficiency (LEP) in designing strategies to improve telehealth equity. The project objective is to improve equitable access to telehealth services by optimizing the telehealth implementation. This award provides the necessary support to expand research about telehealth equity by qualitatively exploring the factors affecting the accessibility and impact of telehealth services for populations with LEP. We will apply the knowledge gained from the qualitative phase to facilitate a stakeholder design workshop to develop strategies for improved telehealth access in populations with LEP. Our team includes members from the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology and the United Way California Capital Region. This study is a strategy that places communities with LEP front and center in the development of telehealth services in order to decrease the digital health divide. Ultimately, this study has the potential to have widespread and sustained impacts on care delivery and healthcare access for our community members with LEP.
The Fires We Light: Chronicling Cooperative Burning Practices on the Yurok Reservation and Ancestral Lands
Emily Schlickman, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Ecology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Community Partner: Cultural Fire Management Council
A multimedia exhibition will explore the ecological and social benefits of cooperative burning practices in Humboldt County, California on the Yurok Reservation and ancestral lands, and engage diverse groups of fire practitioners through participatory narrative inquiry and active observation.
This project seeks to document the ecological and social benefits of cooperative burning practices in Humboldt County, California on the Yurok Reservation and ancestral lands through the co-creation of an exhibition featuring photographs, quotes, maps, audio recordings, and drawings. The project employs participatory narrative inquiry and uses active observation, unstructured interviews, and collaborative storytelling to explore how cooperative burning practices have changed perceptions about fire management in California. There are three primary elements of the project: 1) actively take part in an on-the-ground cooperative burn led by the Cultural Fire Management Council following the 2023 fire season, 2) engage a diverse group of fire practitioners including federal and state agency employees, private landowners, tribal members, and fellow academic researchers, and 3) document the experience through a range of media. Following the burn, we will collaboratively curate, create and publish an exhibition of our findings to tell the story of cooperative fire on the landscape. By sharing our work publicly, we hope to deepen the dialogue about the future of fire in California and our role in shaping it.
