Research team awarded grant to study racism and COVID-19 crisis communication ucla.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ucla.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A team of researchers co-led by Howard University’s Dr. Monica Ponder and UCLA’s
Dr. Chandra Fordhave received a $1.7 million grant from the CDC Foundation designed to reach historically marginalized and disadvantaged populations during public health crises.
The endeavor, dubbed Project REFOCUS, which leverages more than a decade of their experience applying epidemiology and health communication to racism as a public health problem, tracks the intersecting pandemics of racism, especially as expressed through stigma, and COVID-19, with a focus on providing information to the communities most directly impacted. Key concerns include stereotypes about the origins of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the historical and present-day ways structural racism influences the social determinants of health and health access among diverse communities.