Experience Health Equity at Drexel University

EXPERIENCE HEALTH EQUITY DREXEL UNIVERSITY

Building A Community of Scientists Drexel joins a national cohort of diverse, early career health disparities researchers Drexel University received one of six NIH-funded Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) grants to hire, retain and support diverse, early-career researchers.

FIRST is a novel initiative launched by the NIH with the goals of enhancing and maintaining cultures of inclusive excellence in the health research community and supporting the career development of diverse faculty.

The Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health and the College of Nursing and Health Professions will use the $14M FIRST grant to create evidence-based mentorship and sponsorship programs, build a community of scientists in health disparities research and establish policies for faculty recruitment, retention and progression.

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Community Wellness HUB Drexel builds a Collaborative Care Model for people living in West Philadelphia The Community Wellness HUB is a place-based, community-driven health and wellness promotion space in the Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships. In response to the residents of Mantua and Powelton Village, the HUB was created by the College of Nursing and Health Professions to HEAL the community through preventative care, UNITE the community around better health and BRIDGE the community to health services and health education programming.

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Ensuring Access to Pediatric Care Drexel steers efforts to support an anchor institution serving at-risk children and families In a testament to the importance of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children as a center of clinical care, medical training and research, some of the region’s leading institutions, Drexel University and Tower Health, and private donors will provide more than $50 million in financial support to sustain this anchor institution that has served the North Philadelphia community for almost 150 years.

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Feeding the Body, Mind and Soul Drexel gets up close with Philadelphia’s food crisis in community-based learning course Millions of people across the U.S. lack reliable access to affordable, nutritious food — including about one in six families in Philadelphia. Food and Land Security in Philadelphia, an intensive community-based learning course offered each year in the College of Arts and Sciences, explores the prevalence of this issue right in our neighborhood. At the Cesar Andreú Iglesias Community Garden in Kensington, students taking the course help create spaces connecting residents to land justice through cultural identity.

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Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services Drexel delivers accessible, transdisciplinary healthcare and wellbeing programs The Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services is a nationally recognized model of care that provides integrated health services through an anti-racist, trauma-informed care lens to patients residing in and around the 11th St. corridor.

11th Street offers nurse-led primary care, creative arts therapies, physical therapy, dentistry and wellness programming for patients and the community, like nutrition education and cooking classes from a variety of clinicians including College of Nursing and Health Professions faculty and students.

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Keeping Kids Out of the System Drexel evaluates policy changes that keep more Philly kids in school and out of the legal system Growing recognition of the school-to-prison pipeline has catalyzed efforts nationwide to reduce school-based arrests.

One such initiative, the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program,, is demonstrating promising findings with reduced numbers of arrests and improved school outcomes.

Drexel’s Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab evaluated the diversion program’s first five years and found that the annual based arrests in Philadelphia decreased by number of school-based 84%, from nearly 1,600 in the school year beginning in 2013 to just 251 arrests in the school year beginning in 2018.

In addition, the team’s cost-benefit analysis of the diversion program revealed it can save taxpayers millions of dollars.

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SALUD URBANA EN AMERICA LATINA Drexel learns from Latin America about healthy, equitable and environmentally sustainable cities More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, and by 2050 this will grow to more than 70%. The intersection of social, natural and built environments in cities brings many benefits but also challenges for human health and the environment. The (SALURBAL) or Salud Urbana en America Latina/Urban Health in Latin America Project convenes faculty, students and staff at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health and partner institutions from eleven countries and 371 cities in highly-urbanized Latin America.

SALURBAL, funded by the Wellcome Trust, works with stakeholder institutions to ensure that project findings inform policies and interventions to create healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable cities.

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Drexel center launches a groundbreaking project to address structural racism in healthcare The Ubuntu Center on Racism, Global Movements and Population Health Equity at Drexel brings together a vibrant mix of activists, environmentalists, researchers and community residents. The Center provides the platform and organizational infrastructure to advance collective anti-racism scholarship, training and action.

With funding from a $6M Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, the Center will lead a groundbreaking project that prioritizes the community's needs, ideas and voices to address deep-rooted structural racism within the healthcare industry and advance equity and justice in healthcare systems.

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Buist Avenue in Philadelphia’s Eastwick neighborhood was under four feet of water during Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020. Photo: Gordon Branham

Designing Climate Resilient Cities Drexel combines forces to promote environmental justice, reduce health risks around the globe Drexel’s Climate Change and Urban Health Research Center pursues action-oriented research to protect urban populations worldwide from climate change’s adverse health and equity effects. Established through a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the center partners include the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative, the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of São Paulo, Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

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Healing Hurt People Drexel addresses violence and trauma through public health policy, research and training Healing Hurt People is a hospital and community-linked violence intervention program to promote healing, reduce re-injury and stem retaliation among youth who are survivors of violence through trauma-informed practices.

Healing Hurt People advances system-level solutions for violence reduction in Philadelphia — through an innovative Injury Review Panel that engages city leaders from law enforcement, medicine, psychiatry, behavioral health, child protection, legal services and education.

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Drexel and the Philadelphia School District team up to inspire health, wellness and better learning Drexel’s EAT RIGHT PHILLY Team is a Pennsylvania Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (PA SNAP-Ed) partner that provides free nutrition outreach programs to SNAP-eligible participants. The team works alongside the Philadelphia School District to conduct nutrition education programming using interventions that promote healthy eating and physically active lifestyles. They work with kindergarten through twelfth grades and adults to provide nutrition education lessons through interactive programs, games, cooking lessons, food tastings and participation incentives.

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A.J. Drexel Autism Institute Drexel is a leader in autism research dedicated to building a more inclusive world The A.J. Drexel Autism Institute takes a public health approach to understanding and addressing the challenges of autism spectrum disorders. Its interdisciplinary team of researchers explores autism’s characteristics, causes and consequences to develop community-based action to improve the quality of life for people with autism.

In 2023, Drexel was awarded a $2.1M Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program grant from the NIH to continue follow-up of children enrolled in studies dedicated to understanding outcomes among younger siblings of autistic children. This longitudinal study is the first of its kind to follow children from these families from gestation into early adulthood.

Significantly, the study will add to the critical and under-studied period of adolescence and early adulthood.

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Driving Health Equity Solutions The NIH selects Drexel as the National Coordinating Center for the new ComPASS program Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health was awarded a $20M NIH grant through the agency’s Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) program to study health equity solutions nationwide. The ComPASS program enables research at 25 community-serving institutions that address the social determinants of health – such as access to education, healthy food, employment, transportation and health care. Drexel will serve as the coordination center for the national initiative, working in partnership with the University of New Mexico College of Population Health and the data and social science organization Mathematica.

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