Community Health

Community Health

Research in community health is crucial for both understanding the causes of diseases and the social disparities that they may highlight. Public health research provides evidence-based insights that guide public health practitioners, policymakers, and healthcare providers in making informed decisions to improve population health outcomes and reduce healthcare inequality. C2C researchers highlight the diversity of factors that contribute health, investigating reproductive health, food access, tobacco control, and more. ​

Check out our new and ongoing projects below, or get in touch if you have a research question you want answered.​

New Projects​

Suzanna Walters: Reproductive Justice Research Collaborative (RJRC)​

• The Reproductive Justice Research Collaborative (RJRC) will build on previous work and hold two gatherings with community partners. Hosted by our two anchor partners – one in Boston and one in Oakland – and held at our Boston and Mills campuses, the workshops will develop proactive policy ideas through a process called Appreciative Inquiry (AI).​

John Lowrey: The Health Quality, Cost, and Clinical Productivity Benefit of a Food Referral Program: Building on Existing Evidence from the MidOhio Farmacy​

• The project will build on existing empirical analyses of the MidOhio Farmacy program—from a community collaboration in central Ohio—to (1) optimize programmatic features and better identify treatment effects, and (2) aid to other Feeding America member Food Banks with a vested interest in healthcare partnerships.​

Brianna Keefe-Oates: Out-of-state travel for abortion in New England: Identifying support strategies​

• With increasingly restrictive abortion access in many states, more people are traveling to New England for abortion care. The long-term goal of this project is to identify strategies to improve access to abortion for those traveling for care. ​

Ongoing Projects

Miki Hong: Understanding the Role of Tobacco Control in Community Health for Underrepresented Groups​

• The goal of this project is to examine the correlation between tobacco control recommendations in comprehensive plans and existing legislation in municipal government. Partnering with city officials from the Bay Area, this project builds capacity for tobacco control by supporting smoke-free multiunit housing policy backed by comprehensive plans that have worked in the past. ​

John Alexis Guerra Gomez: Interactive Visual Exploration of Opioid exposure on Preterm Births in Oakland, California​

• This project aims to enable decision and policymakers to extract insights related to preterm birth data in Oakland, California, and other communities.​

Adam Parker: Care Can’t Wait​

• The goal of this research is to look at the programs that California has implemented with ARPA funds for the Home and Community Based Services efforts to see if there was improvement in caregiver satisfaction, quality of life, and access to beneficial knowledge.​

Jeremy Sorgen: Cannabis Impacts on Tribal Cultural Resources​

• Through surveys, interviews, and GIS spatial mapping, this project investigated the impact of cannabis cultivation on Tribal ancestral lands, sacred sites, and archaeological sites as well as Tribal sovereignty in the cannabis permitting process. ​