Developing a Youth Participatory Action Research Program for Latine Youth in an Emerging Community.

In this practice note, we document the development of a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program designed by and for Latine youth residing in a small but rapidly growing Latine community. Our community-academic team partnered to cocreate a YPAR curriculum focused on supporting Latine youth in learning about research and developing their own research projects. Participants in the pilot year worked on Photovoice projects centered on topics they identified, including preventing colorism and machismo and increasing access to mental health services. We reviewed lessons learned from this work, including challenges engaging young people and creating linguistically inclusive spaces.

COVID-19 Information Sources for Black and Latine Communities: A Community Co-created Survey.

BACKGROUND: To ensure equity in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine access, it is critical that Black and Latine communities receive trustworthy COVID-19 information. This study uses community-based participatory research to understand sources of COVID-19 information for Black and Latine adults, how trustworthy that information is, and relationships between information sources and COVID-19 vaccine intention. METHODS: We co-created a survey in Spanish and English and distributed it to Black and Latine adults residing in the Pittsburgh area. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: There were 574 participants who completed the survey. Participants reported accessing a variety of COVID-19 information sources and generally trusted these sources. Few sources of information were associated with COVID-19 vaccine intention. We also review lessons learned from our community-academic collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Trustworthy COVID-19 information sources may not be sufficient for increasing vaccine intention. Results can help other community-academic partnerships working to improve COVID-19 vaccine equity.

A Community Partnered Approach to Promoting COVID-19 Vaccine Equity.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color. To dismantle these disparities, it is critical to promote COVID-19 vaccine equity, both through increasing vaccine access and addressing vaccine mistrust. This article describes a community-academic collaboration (the Community Vaccine Collaborative [CVC]), whose mission is to ensure COVID-19 vaccine equity among marginalized communities. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, our group has focused on inclusion of marginalized groups into vaccine clinical trials, addressing vaccine mistrust, and building systems to ensuring equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine. We review formation of the CVC, activities to-date, and recommendations for other communities interested in developing similar collaboratives.

The intersection of pediatrics, climate change, and structural racism: Ensuring health equity through climate justice.

Understanding and intervening at the intersection of climate change and child health disparities require pediatric providers to broaden their competency with structural determinants of health - even in the clinic. The environmental effects of climate change at the community level intersect in complex ways with structural racism and social influences of health. Climate injustice is further evident in policies and practices that disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color through exposure to harmful pollutants from industrial plants, heavy vehicular traffic, and flooding waterways, as well as to harm from degraded civic infrastructure such as leaking water lines and unsafe bridges. To support child health, pediatric providers must recognize the environmental health harms posed to children and multiplied by climate change as well as identify opportunities to center the voices of families and communities to dismantle these inequities. In this article, three case examples demonstrate the links between structural racism, climate change and child health. We then use a healing centered engagement approach to offer specific suggestions for how pediatric providers can actively promote health and resilience, advocate for patient needs, and contribute to efforts to change structural racism in existing practices and institutions.