UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Magazine - Summer 2022 | Food Imbalance

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FOOD IMBALANCE Growing inequities in access to healthy, affordable foods demand new approaches.

DEAN’S MESSAGE

SO MANY OF THE BIGGEST PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES of our time involve food — from chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers to the effects of climate change on food production, and the alarming rates of food insecurity. Food is a central part of our daily lives, carrying cultural and social significance — but it’s also what keeps us healthy or, in some cases, makes us sick. Over the last several decades we’ve learned a great deal about what constitutes a nutritious diet — one with sufficient amounts of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and low in saturated and trans fats, sodium, and added sugars. But we know that in the U.S., many people don’t have a healthy diet, with consequences that include most of the leading causes of death. We also know that more than 38 million Americans, including 12 million children, experience food insecurity — and that, according to research involving UCLA Fielding School faculty, food insecurity in California increased with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the past, public health efforts largely focused on educating people about the importance of a healthy diet and the foods that comprise one. While that work remains vital, the reality is that for much of the population — particularly in many low-income areas and communities of color — it’s not so simple. For a significant number of individuals, fresh produce and other healthy foods are in short supply and, when found, prohibitively priced.

The affordable and accessible foods in these communities tend to be the less-healthy items found in convenience stores and fast-food restaurants. This inequitable food environment contributes to higher rates of the chronic health conditions closely linked to what we eat.

This issue of our magazine highlights some of the many ways in which UCLA Fielding faculty, students, and graduates are taking steps, both big and small, to counteract this imbalance and promote an environment in which everyone has access to the affordable, nutritious foods they need to lead healthy and productive lives.

Working in partnership with community-based organizations, government agencies, and others, they are calling attention to the broken food system and seeking innovative solutions to ensure greater access and healthier options for communities that need them, including the tens of millions of Americans eligible for food assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC, as well as the many more who rely on food banks and pantries. We have faculty leaders such as Dr. May Wang, who serves as a technical adviser to the Los Angeles County Food Equity Roundtable as it pursues better ways to address food insecurity and inequity. Our school also plays an active leadership role on the UCLA campus through initiatives such as the multidisciplinary Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program, administered by UCLA Fielding’s Department of Community Health Sciences. In these and the many other examples you can read about in the pages of this magazine, the specifics vary but the approach is the same, and it’s one that exemplifies the best of public health: bring people together across sectors to work in integrated ways toward the changes needed to ensure healthy meals for all.

Dr. Ron Brookmeyer Dean

The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Magazine

SUMMER 2022

CONTENTS 04

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FOOD IMBALANCE 04 Putting Food Equity on the Table Promoting access to healthy, affordable meals for all

14 Common Ground Preparing future leaders on food issues across disciplines

08 Hungry for Change FSPH students describe what motivated them to pursue food research

18 In Rural India, Protein as Medicine Nutrition intervention improves outcomes for women with HIV/AIDS

11 Toxic Adulation A student takes on celebrity fast-food marketing campaigns

19 Gut Reaction Emerging microbiome evidence holds clues to fighting obesity

12 Nourishment for the Planet Fighting climate change while eating healthier

20 Unhealthy at Home Confinement during the pandemic affected behaviors

OTHER FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

22 Q&A COVID-19 and youth mental health

34 School Work

24 Call to Arms Getting marginalized populations vaccinated

36 Faculty Honors & Service

27 A Winning Partnership UCLA, Tougaloo build public health pathways 30 Healthcare Leaders in the Making Graduating students earn prestigious fellowships 32 Trusted Source Communicating accurate info during COVID-19

35 Bookshelf

38 Grants & Contracts 40 Transformative Investments

Visit us online: ph.ucla.edu

PHOTOGRAPHY & ILLUSTRATION Gary Neill/agoodson.com: front cover. Jane Houle Photography: Dean’s Message, pp. 16, 40, inside back cover. Alexandra Foley Photography: TOC: Tougaloo scholars; p. 11: Espinoza; pp. 27-29, p. 34: admitted students day. iStock Photo/Juanmonino: TOC: vaccination; p. 24. Unsplash/David Holifield: TOC: carrots; p. 14. Unsplash/Ismael Paramo: TOC: bags; p.7. iStock Photo/Massimo Giachetti: pp. 2-3. Unsplash/White Field Photo: pp. 4-5. Getty Images/Jerritt Clark: p. 11: Travis Scott. iStock Photo/fcafotodigital: p. 19: healthy foods. iStock Photo/tommaso79: p. 21: watching television. iStock Photo/ZzzVuk: p. 21: drinking. Margaret Molloy: p. 23, back cover. Dr. Julie Elginer: p. 31. COURTESY OF: Dr. May Wang: p. 6. Lilly Nhan: p. 8: Nhan. Fan Zhao: p. 8: Zhao.

Sarah Chang: p. 9: Chang. Jin Dai: p. 9: Dai. Jennifer Archuleta: p. 10: Archuleta. Jacqueline Beltran: p. 10: Beltran. Dome Lupac: p. 10: Lupac. Dr. Dana Hunnes: p. 12: Hunnes. Megan Beatie/MB Communications: p. 12: book cover. Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program: p. 17. Dr. Catherine Carpenter: p. 18. Dr. Liwei Chen: p. 20: Chen. Dr. Jian Li: p. 20: Li. Dr. Daniel Eisenberg: p.

22. Dr. Chelsea Shover: p. 25: Clinica Romero group; p. 26. Dr. Kristen Choi: p. 32. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health: p. 34: Davis. UCLA Fielding School of Public Health: p. 35: Wallace. © 2021 University of Virginia Press; Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household: p. 35: Emily Abel book cover. © 2021 CRC Press; Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship: p. 35: Catherine Carpenter book cover. © 2022 Oxford University Press; Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health, Seventh Edition: p. 35: Roger Detels book cover. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons; Aerosol Technology: Properties, Behavior, and Measurement of Airborne Particles, Third Edition: p. 35: William C. Hinds and Yifang Zhu book cover. © 2022 Cambridge University Press; Recipe for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life: p. 35: Dana Ellis Hunnes book cover. © 2021 Springer Publishing; Public Health Emergencies: Case Studies, Competencies, and Essential Services of Public Health: p. 35: Robert Kim-Farley book cover. © 2021 CRC Press; Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship: p. 35: William McCarthy and Catherine Carpenter book cover. © 2022 Springer Publishing; Epigenetic Epidemiology, Second Edition: p. 35: Karin B. Michels book cover. © 2021 Routledge; The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society: p. 35: Matthew Mimiaga book cover. © 2021 Springer Publishing; Handbook of Substance Misuse and Addictions From Biology to Public Health: p. 35: Matthew Mimiaga book cover. © 2021 CRC Press; Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship: p. 35: Zuo-Feng Zhang book cover. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons; Patty’s Industrial Hygiene, Seventh Edition: p. 35: Yifang Zhu book cover.

FOOD IMBALANCE Whether it’s families sharing a meal at home, friends dining out, or groups marking a joyous occasion, food’s communal role transcends cultures, geography, and generations. Beyond the pleasure it brings, food keeps us alive — but it can also, over time, make us sick. And, while some communities have the wherewithal to reap the social and health rewards of nutritious meals, the reality for others looks much different. More than 38 million people in the U.S. are food insecure. For many more, healthy food is hard to find, or to afford.

Facing strained budgets and limited options, they have little choice but to subsist on the processed, high-sodium, sugar-enhanced foods that contribute to obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other ailments that compromise health and shorten lives.

Simply put, our food system is imbalanced. We produce enough to feed everyone, yet many go hungry. We know what foods keep people healthy, yet in communities already facing disadvantages of poverty, discrimination, and environmental injustice, nutritious, affordable foods are elusive. UCLA Fielding School of Public Health students, faculty, staff, and graduates know it doesn’t have to be like this.

The pages that follow show some of the many ways UCLA Fielding community members are working to ensure universal access to diets that are affordable, nourishing, culturally appropriate, and sustainable.

FOOD INSECURITY INCREASED WITH THE ONSET OF COVID-19, RESULTING IN LONG LINES AT FOOD PANTRIES.

Dr. Ron Brookmeyer Dean

UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Website: ph.ucla.edu

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EDITORIAL BOARD Haroutune K. Armenian, MD, DrPH Professor-in-Residence, Epidemiology; Thomas R. Belin, PhD Professor, Biostatistics; Pamina Gorbach, DrPH Professor, Epidemiology; Moira Inkelas, PhD Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management; Marjorie Kagawa-Singer, PhD, MN Professor Emeritus, Community Health Sciences; Cathy Lang, PhD Director for Research Administration; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Community Health Sciences; Michael Prelip, DPA Professor and Chair, Community Health Sciences; Beate Ritz, PhD Professor, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences; May C. Wang, DrPH Professor, Community Health Sciences; Zuo-Feng Zhang, MD, PhD Associate Dean for Research; Professor, Epidemiology; Yifang Zhu, PhD Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs; Professor, Environmental Health Sciences; Frederick Zimmerman, PhD Professor, Health Policy and Management; Joana (JoJo) Fernandez and Geneva Vogelheim Co-Presidents, Public Health Student Association; Lori S. Pelliccioni, JD, MPH '96, PhD '02 President, Public Health Alumni Association ph.ucla.edu

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PUTTING FOOD EQUITY ON THE TABLE Amid substantial gaps in who has access to healthy, affordable meals, Dr. May Wang and other FSPH faculty, students, and graduates pursue policies and community partnerships that promote change.

AFTER SPENDING MUCH OF HER CAREER in the realm of maternal and child nutrition — striving to improve the life trajectory of children by focusing on pregnancy and diet during the first five years of life — Dr. May Wang decided to broaden the scope of her work with the onset of COVID-19, as it became clear that in Los Angeles and throughout the state, people of all ages were going hungry.

Wang, professor of community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, is part of a research team that found that in the pandemic’s first three months, more than 3 million Californians reported that their households went without sufficient food, an increase of 22% over the pre-pandemic rate.

Equally alarming, research co-sponsored by L.A. County and published in 2021 found that 10% of the county’s households experienced food insecurity.

“We have long had significant disparities in who has access to sufficient amounts of healthy foods,” Wang says.

“But with the pandemic, those disparities became much more glaring.”

While continuing her work on maternal and child nutrition, including a longtime collaboration with the largest local-agency Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, PHFE WIC, Wang has actively pursued collaborations with community organizations and policy groups that can reduce those disparities. In March of this year, Wang was named as one of two academics to serve on the technical advisory team of the Los Angeles County Food Equity Roundtable, a recently launched 4

effort to track and address the county’s growing food insecurity challenge.

Co-led by Los Angeles County and its philanthropic partners, the roundtable includes leaders from multiple organizations committed to addressing inequities in the current food system.

“Dr. Wang is extremely well-qualified for this work to support the roundtable’s mission and responsibilities to improve access to, affordability of, and consumption of nutritious food,” says Swati Chandra, director of the Food Equity Roundtable. “With her work on these issues, she brings tremendous expertise as both a nutritional scientist and public health policy expert to the team.”

Wide disparities abound across the spectrum of health measures, fueled by factors that include economic, educational, and environmental inequalities; racism and discrimination; and gaps in access to and quality of healthcare.

But when it comes to food, Wang notes, these societal inequities are exacerbated by a host of additional factors, starting with the inefficiencies and injustices in the food system — how what we eat is produced, processed, packaged, transported, distributed, marketed, consumed, and disposed of.

“The system is certainly fragmented, and a lot of people would argue that it’s broken,” Wang says.

The inefficiencies of the system lead to disturbing levels of waste. In the U.S., up to 40% of the food produced is wasted — not eaten — according to the Natural Resources Defense Council; that failure was vividly displayed early in the pandemic by images juxtaposing farmers disposing of large amounts

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of food with long lines at food banks.

Wang’s focus has been on the system’s injustices. She points out that in the U.S., decades-old policies incentivizing farmers to increase the production of crops that include corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice have contributed to the ready availability and lower cost of foods higher in fats and sugars, while the fresh fruits and vegetables essential to a healthy diet are less plentiful and more expensive.

The preponderance of inexpensive, unhealthy foods, along with the scarcity and higher cost of healthy foods, particularly in low-income communities — so-called food deserts — help to explain why food insecurity and high rates of obesity can often be found in the same populations, Wang notes.

“The government agriculture subsidies are part of the reason foods that are processed are cheaper than fresh food, even with the labor involved,” she says. Recently, the Biden administration announced plans to hold a White House Conference on Hunger, Health

“ We have long had significant disparities in who has access to sufficient amounts of healthy foods. But with the pandemic, those disparities became much more glaring.”

— Dr. May Wang and Nutrition in September — the first White House conference on food since 1969. Wang sees this as a positive step toward policy changes that could address problems with the food system.

For food-insecure households, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps and operating as CalFresh in California, is designed to assist families in purchasing food

needed for a healthy diet. But, Wang notes: “Enrollment rates are low due partially to stigma, challenges in the enrollment process, and lack of information about the program. We have to bring diverse stakeholders to the same table to find effective ways to increase the reach of this program.”

One problem with SNAP, Wang explains, has been a burdensome application system. “You hear from many people that, with all the paperwork and in-person interviewing required, they feel demoralized by the end of the process,” Wang says. The process was expedited at the start of the pandemic — including the elimination of the need for in-person interviews — and benefits were increased, although it’s not clear how long those provisions will remain in place. Moreover, Wang notes, many low-income people who do obtain SNAP benefits continue to struggle to be able to afford a healthy diet, particularly in cities with relatively high costs of living such as Los Angeles.

Dismayed by the low SNAP enrollment rates among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) immigrants in Los Angeles, Loan Kim (PhD ’11) partnered with the Los Angeles-based organization Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement on a study to learn more about the reasons. An associate professor at Pepperdine University who completed her doctoral training at FSPH under the faculty mentorship of the late Dr. Gail Harrison, Kim concluded from the study’s interviews that many AAPI immigrants who qualified for the benefits preferred not to have to go through the enrollment ordeal.

“People had issues with an application process that caused them to have to miss almost a day’s worth of work in order to get themselves certified,” she says. “But the most profound thing we saw was that people felt this program, which was supposed to help, made them feel bad about themselves, and it wasn’t worth it to be interrogated. Programs like this tend to make it hard for people who are poor out of a fear they will try to cheat the system, when in reality that’s so rare — people who are struggling just to get food on the table and their kids off to school don’t even have the bandwidth for that. But considering these barriers, combined with the stigma associated with what used to be called Food Stamps, a lot of recent immigrants have a pride and dignity that prevents them from participating.”

Kim’s interest in the issue is informed by her own experience. She was born to a comfortable home environment in Vietnam, but her family was forced to flee during the communist takeover in 1975, eventually arriving in the U.S. with little financial means. “I saw how hard it was to live in poverty, but my father also said we weren’t going to depend on the system,” Kim says. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, she learned more about the health challenges of Vietnamese immigrants while

DECADES-OLD POLICIES INCENTIVIZING U.S. FARMERS TO INCREASE THE PRODUCTION OF CERTAIN CROPS HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE READY AVAILABILITY AND LOWER COST OF UNHEALTHY FOODS.

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“ With both WIC and SNAP, we need to make sure it’s easier for people who need these services to access them, and part of that really comes down to how we as a society treat people who are living in poverty.”

— Loan Kim (PhD ’11) working in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Kim went on to become trained as a clinical dietitian, working in a hospital intensive care unit, before deciding she wanted to shift to a career in which she could work with immigrants in preventing the types of nutritionrelated illnesses she was seeing.

Kim has spent much of her career collaborating with the WIC program, a national effort in which states receive federal grants for supplemental foods, healthcare referrals, and nutrition education for the more than 6 million low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants and children up to age 5 who are considered at nutritional risk. In late 2021, she and colleagues at the Nutrition Policy Institute worked with the National

WIC Association to issue a report on WIC participant satisfaction and experiences during COVID-19. Kim notes that state WIC programs implemented changes during the pandemic, including virtual enrollment and recertification, increased voucher amounts, and greater flexibility in obtaining services.

In a survey of more than 26,000 WIC participants across 12 states conducted in spring 2021, Kim’s group found that most participants were pleased with the changes and hoped that they would continue beyond the time when the pandemic is a concern.

“In the past, because of all the barriers, many people would drop off the rolls once they no longer needed support for their infant, and the challenge has always been how we help these participants continue to benefit from the program,” Kim says. “With both WIC and SNAP, we need to make sure it’s easier for people who need these services to access them, and part of that really comes down to how we as a society treat people who are living in poverty.”

The UCLA Fielding School has been instrumental in promoting healthier diets for WIC beneficiaries. In the early 2000s, research by Harrison and one of her doctoral students at the time, Dr. Dena Herman (MPH ’95, PhD ’02), now an FSPH adjunct associate professor and associate professor at California State University, Northridge, found that providing WIC recipients with vouchers for fruits and vegetables resulted in sustainable increases in consumption.

The study inspired the first legislative change to overhaul the WIC food package, in 2009 — making it more healthful by adding fruits, vegetables, and whole grains while reducing the amount of juice, milk, and cheese. A 2019 study led

by Wang; Dr. Catherine Crespi, FSPH professor of biostatistics; and Pia Chaparro (PhD ’13), one of Wang’s former doctoral students and now an assistant professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, found that these sweeping changes reduced the risk of obesity for 4-year-olds who had been on the program since birth.

Through her volunteer work serving meals at a shelter for people experiencing homelessness, Sarah Roth (PhD ’20) began to think about the limited nutritional options and lack of food choice for people who rely on the charitable food system, including food banks, pantries, and meal programs. Roth notes that many of these programs were developed in the 1980s as a response to an increase in poverty and hunger in the U.S. “The idea has been that there’s a lot of food waste in our system, and a lot of hungry people, so let’s make sure that food gets to them rather than being thrown away,” Roth says.

Over the years, though, more people have come to rely on charitable food.

Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that it serves 40 million people, including 12 million children, and for many, the need isn’t temporary. “Previously, these programs hadn’t been conceived as providing consistent nutrition supplementation,” Roth says.

“They were to help someone who had just lost their job and needed to get back on their feet. But now, with inequalities becoming more entrenched, people rely on these systems more, and the thinking is that if this is going to be their regular source of food, we need to consider what foods are being accepted

DR. MAY WANG (LEFT), FSPH PROFESSOR OF COMMUNITY HEALTH SCIENCES, SERVES AS A TECHNICAL ADVISER TO THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY FOOD EQUITY ROUNDTABLE, DIRECTED BY SWATI CHANDRA (RIGHT).

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and distributed. There’s a well-established body of research showing that people who access food pantries and food banks have higher rates of chronic disease than the rest of the population.”

For her UCLA Fielding doctoral dissertation, Roth partnered with MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger on a national study assessing the influences on and implications of efforts to improve the nutritional quality of food distributed at food banks. Her findings,

“ It’s important that we find ways to raise the voices of people accessing [food banks and pantries] if we want to promote healthier eating habits.”

— Sarah Roth (PhD ’20)

building off of the organization’s “A Tipping Point” report on opportunities to improve the nutritional quality of food bank inventory, highlighted some of the tensions among food, the environment, and waste. “There’s been an immense movement in the charitable food sector to make food healthier — to get fresh produce, dairy, and other perishable items into the food system, because those are the foods that people want to eat and people want to serve,” Roth says. “And yet, challenges remain, including both getting access to healthy food and what to do with unhealthy food. Do you just throw it away? And who’s to decide whether a brownie should go to the dump, or whether someone should be able to eat it?”

Roth, who is currently an associate research scientist with Providence Health & Services’ Center for Outcomes Research and Education in Portland, Oregon, points out that studies consistently indicate that people who use food banks and food pantries prefer fresh and healthy foods. “It’s

SINCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANY FOOD BANKS, PANTRIES, AND MEAL PROGRAMS IN THE 1980S, MORE PEOPLE HAVE COME TO RELY ON CHARITABLE FOOD.

important that we find ways to raise the voices of people accessing these systems if we want to promote healthier eating habits,” she says.

Traditionally, food banks and pantries have given out mostly canned and processed foods, and Wang worries that for the millions of children who rely on these programs for their sustenance, that cultivates taste preferences that will be difficult to change — setting them on the path to a high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar diet that increases their risk for obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions in adulthood. “We have to address all of these food inequities early in the life course, and that means providing healthier food options in supplemental nutrition programs and in low-income communities,” Wang says.

“If you think about the public health benefits for our society in doing that, we have so much to gain.” ph.ucla.edu

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HUNGRY FOR CHANGE

Lilly Nhan, MPH, RD PhD Student, Department of Community Health Sciences I STARTED MY CAREER as a registered dietitian at a hospital, but became frustrated. Often I was reaching patients too late, long after they had developed chronic diseases. The policies, systems,

Fan Zhao, MS ’20 PhD Candidate, Department of Epidemiology MY INTEREST IN FOOD and nutrition stems from obesity research.

Approximately 42% of the U.S. population is obese, and racial and ethnic minorities, including Hispanic and 8

Seven FSPH students recount the events that fueled their passions about food issues and the work they have undertaken as a result.

and environments that shape people’s diets were often overlooked in the clinical setting. Ultimately, I recognized that I needed training in public health to prevent and address poor nutrition on a population-wide scale. In my current research, I study the social determinants of food insecurity at the individual, organizational, and community levels. I am interested in applying my research toward improving the implementation of federal nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted disparities in the burden of food insecurity. Working with Dr. May Wang, UCLA Fielding School professor of community health sciences, and colleagues from UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning,

I found that low-income households in the San Francisco Bay Area were more likely to experience food insufficiency during the early months of the pandemic (April-July 2020) than similar households in the Los Angeles and Riverside/ San Bernardino metropolitan areas. At the same time, many counties in the San Francisco Bay Area have the lowest rates of participation in SNAP. This demonstrates the need for federal programs, like SNAP, to increase access and tailor outreach to local communities in order to effectively reduce food insecurity. I hope to continue using my public health training to ensure that everyone has equitable access and the resources needed to achieve a healthy diet.

Black populations, are most vulnerable.

Knowing that healthy dietary habits play a role in preventing excess weight gain, I set my sights on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) because they contribute to more than half of added sugar in the American diet. On average, U.S. adults consume about 145 calories from SSBs on any given day — and higher consumption of SSBs disproportionately affects non-Hispanic Black children and adolescents.

The soda tax is one policy response aimed at reducing SSB consumption and thereby obesity prevalence, as well as racial/ethnic disparities. Seven U.S. cities have levied a soda tax, but there is a growing debate around such policies, with resistance particularly coming from large beverage companies that have been investing in political lobbying.

My dissertation focuses on the soda tax in four California cities: Berkeley, Albany, Oakland, and San Francisco.

I will evaluate the tax’s impact on soda consumption and obesity prevalence.

Under the supervision of faculty from the UCLA Fielding School’s epidemiology, community health sciences, and health policy and management departments, I am analyzing data over time in an effort to generate an evidence base for the soda tax.

Looking ahead, I plan to apply epidemiological methods to real-life food/ nutrition problems and develop health interventions and policies that will help to build a healthy food/nutrition environment. We already have healthrisk labels on cigarette packages; might similar labels on SSB packages affect people’s decision to buy and drink soda?

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Sarah Chang MPH Student, Department of Community Health Sciences GROWING UP in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, I was surrounded

by Asian immigrant families. In my community, wealth inequalities were glaring, even to the children. I had peers who would vacation in Europe every summer, while others lived in a house consisting of five families.

Jin Dai, MS PhD Student, Department of Epidemiology THERE IS A VERY FAMOUS old saying in China: “Food is the primary concern of the people.” Chinese people not only enjoy eating, but also believe eating good food can bring harmony and closeness to families and relationships. Due to the geographic and

In middle school, I had a friend whose father asked my parents if they knew of any work opportunities. Without English proficiency or an American education, he was struggling to earn a living. The family stopped eating meat because it was costly, and they had no access to a kitchen. This stuck with me for a long time, and I was eager to find ways to address these issues.

Last year, I worked with the Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement to address food access barriers among the elderly residents of Los Angeles’ Chinatown. We facilitated focus groups exploring food-shopping habits among seniors enrolled in CalFresh, the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. From the focus groups, we found that many seniors in Chinatown lacked access to

affordable, fresh produce that was relevant to their cultural diets. The nearby markets were understocked and did not accept CalFresh benefits.

This experience encouraged me to seek opportunities to understand how the pandemic further impacted these communities. I now work on an FSPHled study assessing how food security in the Asian American elderly changed during the pandemic. Asian Americans have the lowest enrollment rates in food assistance programs.

Community-based projects are key to figuring out why, and finding solutions to improve food access.

climate differences in China, cooking approaches and eating habits vary by region. People from northern China consume more hot and spicy foods such as chilies, onions, and garlic, which increase blood circulation and help to get rid of the impact of cold and damp weather. Given southern China’s warmer climate, people there tend to eat more mild and cooling foods to reduce the heat and dryness. I grew up in China with a family that has always valued the relationship between food and health, so I feel very blessed to have developed a strong and positive relationship with food from an early age.

A huge body of nutritional studies have examined the impact of the quantity and quality of food ingested on human health, but limited attention has been paid to meal timing. Yet, emerging evidence suggests that the timing of food intake can affect

various physiological processes, including the sleep/wake cycle, core body temperature, performance, and alertness. In fact, about 900 years ago, Maimonides, a medieval philosopher and doctor, proposed “eating like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at dinner.” As a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology, I would like to examine the potential influences of meal timing on cardiometabolic diseases. My dissertation can shed new light on the prospects of meal timing in preventing illness and reducing nutrition-related deaths.

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Jennifer Archuleta, MPH ’19 PhD Student, Department of Community Health Sciences GROWING UP IN A RURAL part of New Mexico, I experienced how social determinants of health reduce access to nutritious meals and health services.

My mom, who works as a cook at an elementary school, has worked diligently to improve and advocate for the quality

Jacqueline Beltran and Dome Lupac MPH Students, Department of Community Health Sciences 10

of meals she prepares for the children in our community. Frontline workers such as my mom and my childhood dental providers have expressed the pressing need for quality nutrition and oral health-related services, especially for low-resourced families.

Their efforts motivated my interest in a career in public health and my pursuit of an MPH and PhD in community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School.

Poor oral health is an insidious disease burden that can gradually affect the development and arrangement of one’s teeth and general health status over time. It is greatly affected by factors such as diet and food insecurity. Unfortunately, many communities, particularly low-income Latino older adults, are at high risk for food insecurity, permanent tooth loss, and lacking adequate access to oral healthcare.

My research will contribute to informing policies and bridging gaps related to dental insurance, oral health services, nutrition programs, and similar health resources. My previous work has identified how better access to education and dental coverage in Mexico has been associated with an increase in dental health visits among Mexican older adults. In the future, I hope to extend my work on oral health and nutrition in communities around Los Angeles and in my home state of New Mexico.

SINCE OUR FIRST YEAR at the UCLA Fielding School, we have been working with Dr. May Wang and the UCLA Community Programs Office (CPO) to better understand the impact of food insecurity among UCLA students and low-wage staff.

As second-year MPH students passionate about food access, we were drawn to this research project because it highlights the disparities related to food access among those within our own communities at UCLA. For Jacqueline, the impetus comes from hearing about her mother’s experience of being food insecure as a child and her parents teaching her that if you can aid others, you should always do so. Dome’s passion for food access was motivated by being able to contextualize his lived experiences growing up in a low-income, immigrant household and how that impacted what food was available and acceptable to him.

Food insecurity was already a pressing issue before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has been exacerbated by it. Thus, this research focuses on listening to the folks who have benefited from the resources and support provided by CPO. Alongside other students, we have been analyzing data to evaluate the severity of food insecurity among UCLA students and low-wage staff. By doing so, we hope to gain a better understanding on how to best address an issue prevalent across multiple academic institutions within the United States. Regardless of our backgrounds, everyone deserves to be food secure, and that is what we are striving to achieve.

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without regard to their nutritious value. Espinoza suspects her unhealthy diet contributed to her developing a chronic health condition. “It’s not just me — so many kids are in my shoes,” she says. “It’s amazing how many issues can be tracked to our childhood eating habits.”

TOXIC ADULATION Disturbed by advertising campaigns featuring celebrities promoting fast-food consumption to racial and ethnic minority children, FSPH student Lorena Espinoza hopes to contribute to policy remedies.

That realization motivated Espinoza to pursue an MPH, toward the goal of informing policies that address food inequities.

Through the multidisciplinary, UCLA Fielding School-based Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program, she enrolled in a course on food policy taught in the UCLA School of Law; there, she began to investigate available evidence on the health

WITHOUT A SINGLE NEW MENU INGREDIENT, McDonald’s sales

impacts of targeted

surged in September 2020 after rap megastar Travis Scott (pic-

social media

tured at right) teamed with the fast-food behemoth on a digital

advertising such as

marketing campaign promoting the $6 “Travis Scott Meal” — a

the celebrity meals

Quarter Pounder with cheese, bacon, onions and lettuce; fries

campaigns that had

with barbecue sauce; and a Sprite. The company’s stock rose 6%

raised her ire. Espi-

in the campaign’s first month, with many of the chain’s outlets

noza’s findings and

running out of ingredients. McDonald’s doubled down on that

recommendations are of great interest to the law school’s Resnick

success, paying handsome sums to secure endorsements of other

Center for Food Law and Policy, whose founding executive direc-

menu items by Gen Z icons — Colombian reggaeton artist J Balvin,

tor, Michael T. Roberts, teaches the course.

K-pop boy band BTS, American rapper Saweetie. Rival fast-food chains raced to sign up their own pop-culture luminaries.

Lorena Espinoza didn’t share in the enthusiasm. “When

“There is very little understanding of the health outcomes of food advertisements targeted at children, which is why they are so potentially dangerous,” Espinoza says. “Children have constant

I saw the commercials for these celebrity meals on social media,

access to social media as active participants, and it’s not as obvi-

I knew exactly what this was,” says Espinoza, an MPH student in

ous to them as it is to adults when something is an ad. The huge

the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Health Policy and

influence of celebrities in our popular culture, especially among

Management. “Travis Scott

teenagers, makes them even more vulnerable.”

was being paid millions of dollars to promote this unhealthy meal to kids — especially racial and ethnic minority children, who are more likely to consume fast food because it’s cheap and accessible in their communities.”

“ There is very little understanding of the health outcomes of food advertisements targeted at children, which is why they are so potentially dangerous.”

Espinoza’s dismay over the celebrity campaigns comes from her personal experience.

LORENA ESPINOZA

Espinoza says the experience has strengthened her resolve

The daughter of Mexican

to work at the intersection of public health and the law to improve

immigrants whose father spent

the food environment for young people in low-income communi-

time as a migrant farmworker,

ties. “It’s not appreciated that people are just going to eat

she grew up in a community she describes as a food desert — sur-

the food that’s readily available in their community,” she says.

rounded by fast-food chains, and devoid of healthy and affordable

“And when you have these commercials promoting the unhealthy

alternatives. In a food-insecure household, Espinoza’s parents

foods that are prevalent in their environment, it’s only going

sought merely to ensure their children had access to meals,

to make it worse.”

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In her new book, dietitian and UCLA FSPH faculty member Dr. Dana Ellis Hunnes explains how healthy food choices can help to combat climate change.

AS A REGISTERED DIETITIAN who sees patients at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Dr. Dana Ellis Hunnes (MPH ’07, PhD ’13) is dedicated to improving people’s health by counseling them on the foods they eat. As an environmentalist raising an 8-year-old son, Hunnes is committed to protecting the planet’s health in the face of the existential threat posed by climate change.

And as Hunnes outlines in “Recipe for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life,” published in January 2022 by Cambridge University Press, her two passions are inextricably linked.

“At least 25% of emissions come from the foods we eat and how they’re grown — and some reports have indicated it could be up to half,” says Hunnes, an adjunct assistant professor of community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health who studies the health impacts and relationships among climate change, food choices, and food security.

“The decisions we make about the foods we put on our plate can have a big impact on the environment — and, to a remarkable degree, the dietary choices we make that are good for our bodies tend to be simultaneously good for the planet.”

In the first half of “Recipe for Survival,” Hunnes sounds the alarm on the state of planet Earth as human behaviors drive changes in the climate — a discussion Hunnes deems “not for the faint of heart.” But she strikes an optimistic note in the book’s second part, presenting “recipes” that readers can adopt to contribute to positive change — from following a plant-based diet and becoming a socially conscious consumer to reducing food and packaging waste, composting, and either gardening or supporting local agriculture, if possible. Hunnes also includes practical tips on replacing the food items most detrimental to both personal and environmental health, including a sample sevenday meal and grocery list plan for a healthier and DR. DANA ELLIS HUNNES more environmentally 12

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friendly diet. “There are many examples where individuals performed acts of kindness or gave to others to help save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hunnes writes. “We must act in kind, each of us performing acts of sustainability, to help heal Earth.”

Hunnes began working as a clinical inpatient dietitian at UCLA in 2005 as she pursued her master’s degree from FSPH’s Department of Community Health Sciences. While applying for PhD programs shortly after earning her MPH,

she experienced a pivotal moment as she began to learn more about struggles over diminishing water supplies and the potential impact on food supply. For her PhD, she conducted dissertation research in Ethiopia focused on how climate change affects food security. “It was there that the connection really hit,” she recalls. “So many farmers were dependent on rain to feed their crops. When they didn’t have enough rain, they couldn’t grow enough food.”

Three days before defending her dissertation, Hunnes learned she was pregnant with her son, and her global concerns became more personal. “Having someone who was entirely dependent on my husband and me for his well-being made it very clear that if we don’t take care of the planet the way we would take care of a child, the planet might not be able to sustain our children,” Hunnes says. At that point, she decided that what she had learned about the connections between dietary patterns and environmental sustainability needed to reach a larger audience.

In her recipes for promoting individual and planetary health, Hunnes starts with the one she sees as the biggest difference-maker: adopting a plant-based lifestyle. “So many

“ The dietary choices we make that are good for our bodies tend to be simultaneously good for the planet.”

— Dr. Dana Ellis Hunnes studies have shown that people whose diet is primarily plantbased tend to live longer and have fewer chronic diseases,” Hunnes says. “At the same time, we can grow 10,000 times as many calories from plants on one acre of land as from growing animals, and if everyone ate as much meat as Americans, there wouldn’t be enough land to grow enough calories. In addition, the amount of water usage is significantly less for growing plants than for the feed for animals. If we’re concerned about having enough rainforest to produce oxygen and sink the carbon out of the atmosphere, changing our dietary habits is one of the most important things we can do.”

The plant-based diet is just one of many examples in which personal choices can contribute to both a healthy lifestyle and a healthier planet (see the accompanying sidebar). Hunnes hopes that enumerating these options will empower readers to act. “It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the scope of climate change and to think we can’t do anything about it as individuals, but that’s not the case,” she says. “I want people to realize they’re not alone in wanting to do something, and that collectively we can make a difference.”

Hunnes recalls that she, too, once felt overwhelmed by the scope of climate change. But today, she is heartened by the groundswell of interest in taking action against the threat. “I’m seeing much more awareness among the younger generations, including my students,” she says.

“That leaves me hopeful.”

Protecting the Earth, One Recipe at a Time Wherever possible, taking these actions can contribute to better health and a healthier planet: Eat more plants (and significantly less meat).

Decrease the amount of food you waste.* Buy in bulk to reduce packaging.* Can, jar, or freeze to extend the shelf life of your foods.* Compost.

Practice home or community gardening.

Shop at local farmers markets and use community-supported agriculture.* Buy organic or fair trade, especially for common fruits and vegetables grown with high levels of pesticides.

Reduce, reuse, and refuse plastic.

Seek out compostable and eco-friendly products.

Engage in sustainable or ecological tourism.

Buy fewer things and less “stuff.”

Engage with your state and local officials.

Walk, bike, or use public or shared-ride transit when possible and advocate for more walkable cities.* Use less electricity (and energy) and use sustainable sources where possible.

Plant trees and other vegetation to protect the environment.

Seek out cotton or other natural fibers, not synthetics.

Educate others: See, do, teach, and lead by example.

*These items can also save individuals money.

Adapted from “Recipe for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life,”

by Dr. Dana Ellis Hunnes.

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Common Ground In the UCLA Fielding School’s Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program and a course on urban agriculture, students from wide-ranging disciplines come together for holistic education with the goals of food equity and sustainability.

SARAH FANTA LOVED HER JOB AS A DIETITIAN with the Public Health Foundation Enterprises WIC program, which provides healthy free food, nutrition education, breastfeeding assistance, and family resources to more than 200,000 women, children, and families in Southern California. As a supervisor at WIC offices in South Los Angeles and Culver City, Fanta managed teams that provided support services as well as high-risk counseling to WIC participants. But as much as she enjoyed assisting some of the region’s most vulnerable residents, after more than seven years at the agency, Fanta decided to seek graduate education that could provide a broader perspective on the food-insecurity challenges and disparities she encountered on a daily basis. Fanta put her administrative duties on hold and, while continuing as a WIC dietitian, enrolled in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s MPH program.

While she was pursuing her MPH, Fanta also began taking courses in the Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program, based in UCLA Fielding’s Department of Community Health Sciences but open to all UCLA graduate students. The program prepares students from wide-ranging disciplines to address complex topics related to food cultures and histories, nutrition and public health, food policy and food justice, and urban planning and environmental sustainability.

“My exposure to food and nutrition issues beyond maternal and child populations had been quite limited, given that I’ve been at WIC for the majority of my post-undergraduate career,” Fanta says. “Learning about the complexities of the food system from faculty and other students who have such different perspectives has been amazing. It’s important to understand these complexities and work with other disciplines to make food more affordable, our practices more sustainable, and to ensure that the system is equitable for all populations.”

The development of the UCLA Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program, as well as other initiatives promoting interdisciplinary collaboration toward the goal of food equity and sustainability, came out of a Food Summit held at UCLA in 2014, led by the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative (HCI) Center. At the event, more than 70 faculty, students, staff, and campus leaders brainstormed on the development of experiential and co-curricular programs to educate students on the broad topics involved.

“Education focused on a specific subject is necessary, but students also need to develop the skills to work as part

of interdisciplinary teams in order to address the whole food system,” explains Dr. Wendelin Slusser, associate vice provost of the Semel HCI Center, which was envisioned and supported by Jane and Terry Semel. “The interdisciplinary team approach integrates different disciplines, points of view, strengths, knowledge, goals, and values, and encourages experts from different fields to talk to one another.

Building communication is the first step in solving the world’s biggest challenges.”

In the ensuing years, outcomes from the Food Summit have included the establishment of an undergraduate minor in food studies; the jane b semel Healthy Campus Initiative Community Garden, which provides an on-campus site for the UCLA community to grow healthy food and foster education on urban gardening practices, and donates a portion of the produce grown to help food-insecure students; and the Teaching Kitchen, a program of the Semel HCI Center, co-founded by FSPH, which offers an interactive space to help students learn to cook healthy and affordable meals.

“Our goal is to educate and empower the next generation of interdisciplinary leaders and game changers to address the major issues of our time around food — and that means covering all of the dimensions of food in the global and local communities through the lens of equity.”

— Dr. Wendelin Slusser In January 2022, an anonymous $13.5 million gift established the UCLA Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, an interdisciplinary institute devoted to research, teaching, and policy about food.

The Food Studies Graduate Certificate Program, established in 2015 and based in UCLA Fielding since 2019, represents the realization of the summit’s vision of an interdisciplinary approach to educating future leaders equipped to tackle the growing concerns of food security and environmental sustainability. Through the program, graduate students interested in food from different perspectives — health, ph.ucla.edu

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“HEALTHY FOOD ACCESS IN LOS ANGELES: THE HISTORY AND PRACTICE OF URBAN AGRICULTURE,” TAUGHT BY DR. JAMES BASSETT (TOP PHOTO, RIGHT), A UCLA FIELDING LECTURER IN COMMUNITY HEALTH SCIENCES, COMBINES HANDS-ON GARDENING LESSONS WITH EDUCATION ON THE PUBLIC HEALTH BENEFITS THAT CAN BE REAPED FROM URBAN AGRICULTURE.

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economic, cultural, environmental, culinary — take classes together and collaborate on projects with others from across campus, including students from public health, urban planning, public policy, business, law, engineering, psychology, humanities, education, and other natural and social sciences.

The program is directed by a steering committee of five UCLA faculty: Dr. May Wang, FSPH professor of community health sciences and the program’s faculty lead; Slusser, who in addition to her role as associate vice provost is a professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Dr. Robin Derby, an associate professor of history; Dr. Michael Roberts, professor and executive director of UCLA’s Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy; and Dr. A. Janet Tomiyama, an associate professor of psychology. All students are required to take the Food Studies Graduate Certificate Colloquium, which covers current issues in food studies, as well as at least three other courses from a variety of offerings in areas that include food policy and food systems, nutritional sciences, and the social and cultural aspects of food. The certificate program hosts events throughout the year that are open to the entire UCLA community.

Kyle Winterboer was admitted to multiple graduate programs in public policy, but decided on UCLA’s after learning about the food studies certificate program from a recent graduate. As part of the certificate program, Winterboer enrolled in the food law course taught by Roberts and wrote an extensive paper, based on experiences he saw his parents go through running their family farm in northwest Iowa, that critiqued corporate power in the food industry and its impact on food insecurity. From there, he took the colloquium course, taught by Wang, which helped him to more clearly see the public health effects of the policy issues he was studying.

“That course got me to really think about the implications of food for community health, and the role of programs like SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program],” Winterboer says.

Wang introduced Winterboer to unBox, a Stanford-based organization of students working to address food insecurity in the U.S. that Wang advises, and Winterboer began working with the group members as a volunteer, culminating in a speech they delivered at Yale Law School. He’s now studying food insecurity for his master’s thesis, working with the Los Angeles County Food Equity Roundtable, for which Wang serves on the advisory panel. Through the certificate program, Winterboer was connected with Prosperity Market, a Blackowned farmers market based in South Los Angeles, and began an internship with the business, which supports Black farmers and food entrepreneurs in efforts to bring more fresh produce to Black communities.

For Wang, who spearheaded the development of the certificate program, the opportunity to teach Winterboer and other students who come to food issues from all over the campus is itself an education. “We learn so much from these students bringing in their different perspectives, and the students learn from each other,” she says. “When we design interven-

tions in public health, we have to consider so many factors beyond just health, and that requires communication across disciplines.”

At the jane b semel Healthy Campus Initiative Community Garden at UCLA’s Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, students in a UCLA Fielding-taught course learn practical gardening techniques and have the opportunity to plant seeds and cultivate crops in the garden’s raised beds in half of the class sessions. “Healthy Food Access in Los Angeles: The History and Practice of Urban Agriculture,” taught by Dr. James Bassett, a UCLA Fielding lecturer in community health sciences, combines the hands-on gardening lessons with education on the public health benefits that can be reaped from urban agriculture. Among them, Bassett notes: making fresh produce more accessible and affordable to people in urban food deserts, promoting mental health and social connections through community gardens, and cultivating a taste and interest in fresh fruits and vegetables among young people in urban neighborhoods through school gardens. Students

“It’s important to work with other disciplines to make food more affordable, our practices more sustainable, and to ensure that the system is equitable for all populations.”

— Sarah Fanta hear from leaders of grassroots groups such as Food Forward, which brings fresh surplus fruits and vegetables to people experiencing food insecurity in Southern California; and the UC Master Gardener Program, which trains master gardeners — including Bassett — to offer volunteer services and outreach to the public in more than 1,200 demonstration, community, and school gardens throughout California. All of the teachings about urban agriculture emphasize sustainable practices.

STUDENTS FROM WIDE-RANGING DISCIPLINES ON THE UCLA CAMPUS COME TOGETHER TO ENGAGE IN DISCUSSIONS ON FOOD ISSUES AS PART OF THE FSPHBASED FOOD STUDIES GRADUATE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM. ABOVE: AN EVENT HELD

BY THE PROGRAM IN FEBRUARY 2020.

Trish Lombardo, who took the course last winter, says she was initially enticed by the prospect of learning hands-on gardening practices. “Who wouldn’t want to gain some knowledge on a more farm-to-table lifestyle, or merely fulfill an urge of detaching by sticking your hands in some dirt?” she says. “But the class extends the basic ‘how-to’ knowledge on gardening to a deep awareness of the valuable practices of urban agriculture and its vital role in sustainability.”

Interest among students in the course is high, reflecting a societal resurgence in urban gardening that has been accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bassett says. He hopes the course instills an interest that students bring to their future professions, whatever they might be. “Obviously they’re not all going to go out there and establish small commercial urban farms to feed the world,” he says. “But I do imagine, because so many are going into fields such as public health, public policy, education, and psychology, that they might be working with others where they would be in a position to support or advocate for urban agriculture.”

Addy Hays, an undergraduate ecology major at UCLA with a minor in food studies, says the course has changed the way she views gardens. “I used to think of them as such an undertaking, but with the methods we learned, you just need a raised bed, 4-by-8 [feet], and you have yourself a mini-garden that can help to feed people,” she says. “Now, whenever I’m outside in a new environment and I see an open space, I think to myself, ‘How can we make this productive and beneficial to the community?’”

In her work as an intern at an elementary school garden in Los Angeles, Hays has seen the power of the experience for children, particularly in low-income communities.

“They gain not just the physical benefits of consuming more fruits and vegetables, but also the therapeutic benefits of being in a garden space,” she says. “They get so excited to eat something they’ve grown themselves, and they take that excitement home to their parents, which can influence their eating habits at an early age.”

Slusser views the holistic and equity-focused education of students in both the food studies certificate program and the urban agriculture course as a recipe for producing the leaders needed to ensure universal access to healthy, affordable foods.

“Our goal is to educate and empower the next generation of interdisciplinary leaders and game changers to address the major issues of our time around food — and that means covering all of the dimensions of food in the global and local communities through the lens of equity,” she says.

Sarah Fanta intends to be among that group of leaders and game changers. She plans to continue her work at WIC while using her MPH for special projects addressing factors, such as housing, that affect the low-income population that participates in the WIC program. “I’ve learned that the food system is much more complex than I knew about, but that there are many exciting things happening,” she says. “Through a better understanding of the factors that affect food equity, my goal is to work with leaders in other fields to get more resources to our participants.” ph.ucla.edu

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In Rural India, Protein as Medicine FSPH’s Dr. Catherine Carpenter and colleagues have shown the dramatic health improvement that nutrition provides for women with HIV/AIDS living in areas with extreme poverty.

FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS, AS Dr. Catherine Carpenter (PhD ’96) has traveled to India as part of an international research team focused on nutrition and women’s health, she has seen the transformation of many Indian cities into globalized urban areas. “There’s a lot of new construction, a lot of new buildings, especially in Chennai,” explains Carpenter, a UCLA Fielding School professor of epidemiology with joint appointments in the schools of nursing and medicine. “Every time I travel to Chennai, there are new additions — to the airport, to the city — and it’s busy. Then, traveling into the rural areas, one often sees extreme poverty.”

Carpenter’s work in India focuses on the benefits of protein for recovery from malnutrition; the joint Indian-American research team she is part of has worked since 2012 on a variety of randomized nutritional intervention trials seeking to find ways to improve the health of Indian women in rural areas — especially those living with HIV/AIDS. “Somebody who has HIV/AIDS, who has progressed in terms of the disease, often gets what is called muscle wasting,” Carpenter says. “The disease places a strain on the immune system, and in the context of malnutrition, the body turns to the muscle to supply it with enough protein to support an immune response and you see the characteristic signs of muscle wasting — people with very thin upper arms.”

People living with HIV/AIDS, especially in a setting of widespread malnutrition, are at a high risk of nutritional deficiency and poor nutritional status leading to a weakening of the immune response and worsening recovery, Carpenter explains. Malnourished individuals who start antiretroviral therapy are generally at a higher risk of mortality. In addition, nutrient deficiencies increase the person’s susceptibility to infection from opportunistic diseases (such as human papillomavirus, or HPV; salmonella; and candidiasis, or thrush), which occur more frequently and are more severe in people with compromised immune systems.

Searching for answers, Carpenter and her colleagues from UC Irvine, UC San Francisco, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi have studied the impact of interventions that include protein supplements, nutrition education, and supportive care. The results, summarized in a study published in 2021 in the journal Nutrients, are striking.

The 600 women who participated weighed an average of 100 18

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ABOVE: DR. CATHERINE CARPENTER (CENTER) WITH K. KALPANA (LEFT) AND R. VASANTHA (RIGHT), INTERVIEWERS ON THE STUDY TEAM, AT THE BAY OF BENGAL. RIGHT: A FOOD BASKET WITH SOME OF THE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOUND IN ANDHRA PRADESH, THE REGION OF SOUTH INDIA WHERE THE STUDY WAS LOCATED. THE BASKET CONTAINS INDIAN GOOSEBERRY, DRUMSTICK VEGETABLE, INDIAN SQUASH, TOMATO, POMEGRANATE, AND LIME.

pounds or less when the program began. By the end of the study, the women had not lost weight and some even gained 7 to 9 kilograms — or 15 to 20 pounds. Importantly, the women who received the protein and nutritional education interventions significantly gained lean muscle mass. The researchers also saw a significant increase in CD4 counts, a key immune marker. “The improvements in lean mass and weight are important ways this research can support improving the health of women living with HIV/AIDS, particularly ones who live in impoverished settings,” Carpenter says.

The researchers made a point of using locally grown foods — notably, lentils — and providing education through locally recruited staff. “We didn’t come from the U.S. with protein shakes in a can,” Carpenter says. “This study is important because of what it showed — that making these dietary changes can impact the immune system and the response to disease.”

improvements in fitness from exercise, or in

of highly processed animal-based foods

weight from dieting. For a behavior change

is associated with microbial dysbiosis and

to cause significant changes in chronic

elevated low-grade inflammation.”

disease risk in just days really excited me.”

The 500-plus bacterial species comprising our gut microbiome have 100 times

GUT REACTION

says, means consuming six servings per day (approximately 20% of daily calories)

more genes for extracting nutrients from fiber-rich foods than humans do. The bacteria convert these nutrients into metabolites valuable for their human host, such as short-chain fatty acids, which provide 10% of the host’s daily calories and help regulate glucose, appetite, and inflammation.

“Most of our gut microbes can’t live

“…our immune system is heavily influenced by our gut microbiota.”

— Dr. Bill McCarthy

without us, we thrive when they do well, and our immune system is heavily influ-

of fiber-rich, minimally processed plant-

enced by our gut microbiota,” McCarthy

based foods drawn from the U.S. Depart-

says. “They are helpful in many ways in

ment of Agriculture’s MyPlate food groups;

protecting the host from all sorts of

most Americans are starving their microbial

threats, including metabolic threats like

allies by eating two servings or less.

heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.”

To ensure adequate nutrition for one’s

Along with McCarthy, UCLA Fielding

FSPH’s Dr. Bill McCarthy is among a growing group of public health researchers who have turned to emerging gut-microbiome evidence for clues in fighting obesity and improving health.

Feeding your microbes well, McCarthy

microbes, McCarthy recommends fresh,

School faculty Drs. Catherine Carpenter,

minimally processed vegetables and fruits

Dena Herman, Jonathan Jacobs, and

(apple slices, rather than applesauce, for

Karin Michels have studied the microbiome

example); protein-rich legumes, nuts and

as it relates to nutrition and health.

seeds; and whole grains, like brown rice

“Microbe-friendly foods closely resemble those featured in the classic Mediterra-

and bulgur wheat.

“The more we can get our microbes

nean diet and other high-fiber diets,” says

to generate short-chain fatty acids,

Jacobs, an assistant professor of epidemi-

the less hunger and appetite one has,”

ology at FSPH and of medicine in the David

McCarthy says. “The weight control advice

Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “By

coming out of current research trials

FOR DECADES, DR. BILL MCCARTHY HAS

contrast, the evidence is persuasive that

may well be, ‘Eat more microbe-friendly

CONDUCTED RESEARCH ON LIFESTYLE

adherence to the Western dietary pattern

foods, weigh less.’”

BEHAVIORS, such as how smoking and eating junk food affect health. This work was frustrating, however, because the health consequences of his research are typically not seen for years.

But in 2014, he encountered a study that documented marked changes in the community of microbes in a person’s gut within days after switching from a vegetarian diet to an animal-based diet, with profound implications for health.

As McCarthy learned more, his research focus began to pivot.

“I was amazed that a change in everyday food consumption could radically change one’s health prospects in just four days!” marvels McCarthy, a UCLA Fielding School professor of health policy and management. “Because the half-life of gut microbes is only 20 minutes, big changes to what you eat can change their composition much faster than the time it takes to see

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Unhealthy at Home An FSPH-led study finds that pandemic-instituted confinement resulted in many people adopting unhealthy behaviors as a way of coping.

THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCES OF SARS-COV-2 HAVE BEEN ENORMOUS, with severe illnesses and approximately 1 million deaths in the U.S. among the nation’s more than 80 million reported COVID-19 cases. The danger posed by community spread of the virus resulted in both government- and self-imposed restrictions on people’s activities, particularly early in the pandemic. And those restrictions, along with economic and other forms of distress, likely contributed to behaviors with health implications beyond those directly resulting from the virus, a study led by UCLA Fielding School of Public Health researchers found.

Dr. Liwei Chen, FSPH associate professor of epidemiology, and Dr. Jian Li, FSPH professor of environmental health sciences, led a collaboration with 10 other institutions that surveyed representative samples of adults from across the U.S. in October 2020 on their lifestyle behaviors before and during the pandemic. The study, published in the October 2021 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients, found that compared with pre-COVID habits, Americans reported reducing their exercise time by 31% while increasing the time they spent in front DR. LIWEI CHEN of a computer or television screen by 60%. Alcohol consumption went up 23%, cigarette smoking by 9%. The analysis was conducted using data from the Health, Ethnicity, and Pandemic (HEAP) Study, led by the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at the University of Nebraska.

“In public health, our most immediate concern during a pandemic is protecting people from becoming DR. JIAN LI 20

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infected and spreading the virus in communities,” says Chen, the study’s lead author. “That led to stay-at-home orders and other actions to restrict nonessential activities. Although these were necessary, we found that they had profoundly negative effects on lifestyle behaviors that we know are important to promoting good health.”

Of the five behaviors surveyed in the study, only one suggested a positive outcome of the pandemic-instituted restrictions. The average consumption of fast food dropped by more than 30% — though Chen notes that this isn’t

Although the impact of the pandemic on health behaviors was negative across demographic groups, it disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities, who already bear a higher disease burden from COVID-19. necessarily evidence Americans were eating better.

“The observed decrease in fast food consumption is likely due to the stay-at-home orders and the closure of fast-food restaurants during the pandemic,” she says. “We didn’t collect information on what particular foods people were eating or their overall caloric intake, but several studies from European countries found that people’s dietary intake was worse — that they ate lower amounts of fruits and vegetables, and less fresh food overall.”

The physical confinement wasn’t the only factor that contributed to the unhealthier pandemic habits. In another publication from the HEAP Study led by the same UCLA Fielding School team and published in the November 2021

issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the researchers found that among U.S. adults who were working before the COVID-19 pandemic, negative employment changes — including pay cuts and both temporary and permanent job losses — were associated with higher psychological distress. “Under stress, many people adopt unhealthy behaviors as a way of coping, or reduce their healthy behaviors,” Li says.

The UCLA Fielding School-led research found that, although the impact of the pandemic on health behaviors was negative across demographic groups, it disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities, who already bear a higher disease burden from COVID-19. For example, Chen notes, increases in alcohol consumption and smoking were highest among Hispanic and Black Americans, while the effects of negative employment changes on psychological distress — a likely contributor to unhealthier behaviors — were greatest among Asian Americans and Black Americans.

Other contributors to the behavioral changes reported during the height of the pandemic included racism and discrimination. Chen’s research team found that COVIDrelated racial discrimination, including cyberbullying and hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, was associated with decreased exercise and increased screen time. Chen notes that in many surveys, sample sizes for Asian American populations are too small to draw statistically significant conclusions, particularly among Asian American subpopulations, but the HEAP data oversamples these groups to enable such analyses.

The researchers note that their work has limitations — the survey was carried out at the peak of the pandemic in the U.S., so it’s not clear to what extent the unhealthier lifestyle behaviors represented a short-term response, as opposed to

changes that persisted even after the restrictions were loosened. Nonetheless, they believe their findings underscore the importance of a public health response to pandemics and other emergencies that seeks to mitigate the potentially harmful lifestyle effects.

“We found a marked increase in sedentary behaviors, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking, and a decline in exercise,” says Li, who is also affiliated with the UCLA Fielding School’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Southern California Education and Research Center. “Further research is needed to determine whether these persisted as the pandemic continued, and whether individuals’ quality of life and health well-being are subsequently affected. But it is clear that resources and support that can address mental health and help people maintain healthy lifestyles during the pandemic and afterward are urgently needed.”

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Q&A The Pandemic’s Toll on Youth Mental Health FSPH professor Dr. Daniel Eisenberg discusses concerns about the mental well-being of children, adolescents, and young adults that have been magnified by COVID-19.

IN DECEMBER 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory highlighting the “urgent need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis,” calling for a swift and coordinated national response in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic’s “unprecedented impacts on the mental health of America’s youth and families, as well as the mental health challenges that existed long before the pandemic.”

A poll by the American Psychiatric Association released in May 2021 found that more than half of U.S. parents expressed concerns about their children’s mental well-being.

Dr. Daniel Eisenberg, professor of health policy and management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and director of the mental health program at FSPH’s Center for Health Policy Research, focuses on improving the understanding of how to effectively invest in adolescent and young-adult mental health. Eisenberg is the founder and principal investigator of the Healthy Minds Network for Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health, which administers the Healthy Minds Study — a national survey of student mental health and related factors — and facilitates the development, testing, and dissemination of innovative programs and interventions for student mental health. Eisenberg spoke with the 22

UCLA Fielding School’s Public Health Magazine on the mental health impact of COVID-19 on the nation’s youth, and the importance of evidence-based solutions.

Q: What do you expect will be the enduring mental health impact from the pandemic on young people?

A: One major concern identified is school-age children having fallen behind in some of the basic math and reading skills — especially younger kids, for whom it was most difficult to engage online. Research also shows that there seems to be a deficit in social skills for younger children.

These academic and social effects

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on younger children will probably take the longest to recover from.

In terms of direct mental health effects, the research is less clear.

Obviously, many families in the United States have experienced significant financial hardship, illness, and death.

But data, for example, from our large survey study of college students’ mental health indicates that we have seen the same steady increase in depression and anxiety that we were seeing prior to COVID-19. Mental health for children and young adults was already on the rise as a public health issue, and the pandemic has shone a brighter spotlight on that.

Q: What do we know about the causes of increased mental health problems among young people predating the pandemic?

A: One of the leading explanations, especially for teenagers, has to do with digital media — particularly because the rise seemed to be especially sharp roughly between 2010 and 2020, which coincides with a dramatic increase in the use of digital and social media both among that age group and overall, as smartphones became ubiquitous through much of our society. One underappreciated way in which that trend has been harmful is its effect on the amount and quality of sleep young people are getting. Then there’s the more discussed pathway, which has to do with social comparison — young people seeing what everyone else is doing and defining their own identity in terms of what other people say and do. We know, from lots of psychological research, that’s not healthy.

Of course, even before the pandemic, digital media has had enormous benefits alongside these harms. And during the pandemic, online media helped buffer us

against isolation, though it certainly doesn’t replace our in-person lives. So the solution isn’t to cut it out of young people’s lives, but to help them develop a healthy relationship with it.

Q: Across so many measures, COVID-19 has hit low-income and minority communities the hardest. Is the mental health toll of the pandemic also disproportionately affecting these communities?

A: We know that the pandemic exacerbated economic inequalities, and economic stress and hardship are among the greatest predictors of mental health incidents. Often, there’s a focus on mental health in youth as being related to academic stress and pressure to perform. That’s true, but it’s secondary compared to financial hardship and the stress of living in poverty. Also, the pandemic has led to much higher rates of death and illness among people of color in the U.S., and the resulting grief and stress have undoubtedly contributed to additional mental health challenges.

Q: What is your takeaway regarding the U.S. surgeon general’s advisory on the need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis?

A: I was really pleased that the report reflected a public health approach to mental health. It’s clear that the

solutions must involve not just providing more access to mental healthcare, but doing more on prevention and creating healthy, supportive environments in schools, families, and neighborhoods.

Mental health is affected by many different factors, and the response needs to be multifaceted rather than just focusing on individual problems and treatments.

“ Mental health for children and young adults was already on the rise as a public health issue, and the pandemic has shone a brighter spotlight on that.”

Q: What should we be investing more in from a public health standpoint?

A: First, we could do a better job of using evidence to guide our investments. There are a number of programs and services with strong evidence of both efficacy and cost-effectiveness that reach a very small percentage of people who would benefit, while many programs and services without great evidence reach a large number of people. At the youngest ages, home visiting programs such as the Nurse-Family Partnership, in which a trained professional visits families on a schedule to help parents get their child off to the best possible start in life, have been shown to be very effective. Schools over the last few decades have increasingly adopted programs where the idea is to teach not just academic skills, but also social and emotional skills, and we have good evidence that some of

these programs improve children’s behavioral and emotional outcomes.

And on the treatment side, for adolescents who are experiencing severe mental health problems, multisystemic therapy, which provides intensive services to assist caregivers of these at-risk youth, shows good evidence that it can help turn things around and prevent costly outcomes.

I think it’s important to be realistic about the fact that our evidence about what’s effective is not as complete for prevention approaches. The problem is that our system is skewed toward generating more evidence for treatment and less for prevention. Prevention programs are harder to study, because they operate on a larger scale. But we need more and better research, in addition to more investment in a prevention and public health approach to mental health. ph.ucla.edu

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Call to Arms

Led by Chelsea Shover (PhD ’18), FSPH students, faculty, and alums rallied behind efforts to get COVID-19 vaccines to oftenoverlooked populations.

ALTHOUGH BOTH EARNED DEGREES at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Edith Hernandez (MPH ’15) and Chelsea Shover (PhD ’18) hadn’t met prior to one Sunday in late February 2021, when their paths crossed at a vaccination clinic held by Clínica Romero at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.

Hernandez was the public health manager for Clínica Romero, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) serving a largely Latino, uninsured population in greater Los Angeles.

Clínica Romero was among the first FQHCs to receive significant quantities of the COVID-19 vaccines, and Hernandez was charged with ensuring that the potentially life-saving shots reached populations that didn’t readily access the healthcare system.

At the Mexican Consulate, Hernandez was introduced to Shover, an epidemiologist who had come to lend volunteer support for Clínica Romero’s vaccination efforts that day. Hernandez quickly learned that Shover had the ability to tap into a network of potential volunteers at UCLA, including students and faculty at the UCLA Fielding School.

Hernandez had a vaccine event the following Friday in Palmdale, 70 miles north, aiming to draw a particularly hard-to-reach group: the area’s farmworkers. And she needed volunteers — lots of them — stat.

“I told Chelsea we needed as many as we could get,” Hernandez recalls.

“It was going to be a little chaotic, and we knew that with more volunteers it would make for much shorter lines and a much smoother process.”

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Using UCLA listservs and her own network of friends and colleagues, Shover sent the word out for both clinical and non-clinical volunteers — Spanish speakers preferred — and assisted at the event alongside students from FSPH and other parts of UCLA, and two UCLA Fielding faculty, Drs. Kristen Choi and Pamina Gorbach.

It was neither the first nor the only time that UCLA Fielding volunteers helped get COVID-19 vaccines to traditionally underserved populations.

Shover was working as a supervising epidemiologist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) in the second half of 2020 through a six-month contracting position in which she led data reporting on COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness. As she was coming to the end of her time at the county and preparing to transition to her current position as an assistant professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Shover was approached by her former FSPH classmate, Claire Jarashow (PhD ’16),

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then director of vaccine-preventable disease control for LACDPH. “As the vaccines were becoming available, it was clear that a lot of FQHCs and other clinics serving vulnerable populations that were getting vaccine allocation didn’t have the kind of data infrastructure support to fulfill the state’s requirements,” Shover says.

“I knew there were many students, including from the Fielding School, who were at home during the pandemic and would be excited to help, so we put out a call for data volunteers and matched a bunch of students with clinics that needed assistance.”

Over the ensuing months, as Shover conducted site visits and learned about other needs the FQHCs had, her recruitment efforts broadened. In all, Shover connected some 200 clinical and non-clinical volunteers with opportunities to support the vaccine programs of approximately a dozen FQHCs around L.A. County, as well as supporting the work of Housing for Health, a division of the L.A. County

Department of Health Services that has engaged in a street-based COVID-19 response. The volunteers included more than a dozen FSPH students, many of whom continued to provide support on an ongoing basis, in some cases as summer practicum experiences.

Allison Rosen, an FSPH doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology, joined Shover’s volunteer program in January 2021, initially as a consulting epidemiologist with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, an FQHC that is among the largest healthcare providers in South and Central Los Angeles. Rosen provided recommendations for data management, trained staff on vaccine reporting requirements, and assisted with patient registration at vaccine clinics. In May 2021, she began working as a supervising epidemiologist for Housing for Health. “It’s been both exciting and rewarding to use the knowledge and skills I’ve gained as an FSPH student to increase COVID-19 vaccination access for people experiencing homelessness in L.A.,” Rosen says.

In Shover’s role as a supervising epidemiologist for L.A. County, she had collaborated with Housing for Health, which worked proactively in sending staff to shelters and encampments — first for testing and, once available, to provide vaccinations for unhoused individuals. At UCLA, Shover received funding in May 2021 to lead a study, in partnership with Housing for Health, examining the feasibility of a peer ambassador program as a way to better reach the people in these environments. The demonstration project, which Shover led through December 2021, when the county began running the program on its own, paid scores of people who were either currently unhoused or had experienced homelessness to work alongside Housing for Health’s community health workers, passing out supplies and engaging the unhoused individuals in conversations about the COVID-19 vaccines in an effort to get them vaccinated.

“ As the vaccines were becoming available …

I knew there were many students, including from the Fielding School, who were at home during the pandemic and would be excited to help.”

— Chelsea Shover, PhD ’18 Shover’s study found that paying peer ambassadors $25 an hour in the form of retail gift cards resulted in one additional person getting vaccinated for every hour worked. “People who are on the fence on whether to get vaccinated are much more likely to listen when they’re approached by a peer — someone they know and trust — than someone from a university or government agency,” Shover says.

Two UCLA Fielding MPH students who worked with Shover as interns in summer 2021 to fulfill their practicum requirements say the experience was invaluable. Jacqueline Beltran responded to Shover’s call for bilingual students to join the peer ambassador study and stayed on through the end of UCLA’s affiliation with the project, helping to implement the program and build capacity among the L.A. County Department of Health Services staff to sustain it beyond the study. “Working in

AT THE UCLA-SUPPORTED POP-UP CLINIC FOR FARMWORKERS IN PALMDALE, CALIFORNIA, HOSTED

BY CLÍNICA ROMERO, SEATED, L. TO R.: DR. OSCAR E. GALLARDO HUIZAR, OLIVE VIEW-UCLA INTERNAL MEDICINE RESIDENT; BECCA NELSON, UCLA UNDERGRADUATE; JANELL MOORE (MPH ’14), FSPH STAFF; STANDING, L. TO R.: EDITH HERNANDEZ (MPH ’15), THEN PUBLIC HEALTH MANAGER FOR CLÍNICA ROMERO; H. TRAVIS MOORE, STUDENT AT UCLA ANDERSON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT; DR. KRISTEN CHOI, FACULTY MEMBER IN FSPH AND THE UCLA SCHOOL OF NURSING; DR. POOJA DESAI, UCLA INTERNAL MEDICINE RESIDENT; INDIA RICHTER, FSPH STAFF; AND DR. PAMINA GORBACH, FSPH FACULTY MEMBER.

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DR. CHELSEA SHOVER (RIGHT) WITH GUNNER SIXX, A COORDINATOR WITH HOUSING FOR HEALTH, AT A VACCINATION EVENT AT ST. FRANCIS CENTER IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES IN AUGUST 2021.

the field among people currently experiencing homelessness, I learned that there are those who are more than willing to aid their community and themselves when presented with the opportunity to do so,” says Beltran, a student in FSPH’s Department of Community Health Sciences. “I have learned just how essential support networks are in this community, as in any other community.”

Julissa Alvarado, a student in FSPH’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences who worked on both the peer ambassador study and the vaccine efforts of Eisner Health, an FQHC serving low-income communities of color in Los Angeles, says she also benefited greatly from the experience.

“Having the opportunity to directly interact with underserved populations, such as people experiencing homelessness, and encourage vaccine uptake among these communities gave me insight into some of the equity challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic,” she says. “It was rewarding to make a positive contribution to eliminating barriers and improving the health of these populations.”

When Edith Hernandez joined the Clínica Romero team as its first public health manager in November 2020, her focus was on bringing the new vaccines to the clinic, and then ensuring that the allotment made its way to the hard-to-reach populations the FQHC was meant to serve. Founded in 1983 by a group of Salvadoran civil war refugees, Clínica Romero has physical locations in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights and Pico-Union communities, but its reach extends well beyond. “The goal has always been to extend services to people who have nowhere else to go, which includes low-income, essential workers from underserved immigrant communities, many of whom are undocumented or have unknown immigration status,” Hernandez says. “And because Clínica Romero has been around so long, it’s developed high levels of trust in these communities.”

“ I’m proud of what we were able to do in getting vaccines to communities that are so often overlooked.”

— Edith Hernandez, MPH ’15 26

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In pursuit of that mission, Clínica Romero partnered with Salva, a Palmdale-based nonprofit organization that advocates for migrants’ rights, on two events aiming to vaccinate the community’s farmworkers. Thanks in part to the volunteers Shover helped recruit, Hernandez’s concerns about bottlenecks at the registration table were allayed. More than 200 farmworkers were vaccinated at each event.

In June 2021, Hernandez accepted a position at the L.A. County Department of Public Health, where she is the lead project manager for the weekly COVID19 testing programs of all private, public, and charter schools. That has meant helping to establish a first-time program, just as she did at Clínica Romero, where Hernandez oversaw the administration of more than 15,000 vaccines in the three months from February through May 2021.

“Looking back, that experience seems surreal,” Hernandez says. “It was peak COVID, and we were on high speed all the time, working seven days a week. But I’m proud of what we were able to do in getting vaccines to communities that are so often overlooked.

With every vaccine we administered, that was a life we changed.”

Shover has mostly returned to the work she was focused on prior to the pandemic — conducting research on addiction, overdose, and infectious disease. She continues to do community-engaged research, applying lessons learned from the peer ambassador study to scale up projects in harm reduction. Besides lending much-needed assistance to the efforts to bring vaccines to traditionally underserved communities and providing FSPH students with indispensable on-the-ground experiences, she brought in friends who had no previous exposure to public health, but have since opted to stay in the field. Many of the community health workers who recruited peers for the peer ambassador study have also remained in public health.

“I feel like I’ve met all the best people in L.A., very efficiently,” she says, smiling. “It was a great experience.”

A Winning Partnership The UCLA-Tougaloo College Public Health Scholars Training Program provides education, mentorship, and the potential for fully funded doctoral education to students from a historically Black college while enriching FSPH and bringing new perspectives to the field.

THE 2021 COHORT OF TOUGALOO SCHOLARS INCLUDED, L. TO R.: DESIREE-GIFT MILLS, ALITZEL SERRANO, ALEXANDRIA MORGAN, XHANA THOMPSON, AND ZECHARIAH DAVIS. NOT PICTURED: NAKYAH HILL.

XHANA THOMPSON SAYS SHE KNEW LITTLE ABOUT PUBLIC HEALTH when one of her professors at Tougaloo College informed her of an opportunity to participate in a new summer program offered by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in partnership with Tougaloo, a historically Black liberal arts institution in Jackson, Mississippi.

“I thought public health was more for biology students, and I’m most interested in the social sciences,” says Thompson, a psychology major with designs on working with children from marginalized communities as a licensed clinical social worker.

Seeking to expand her horizons, Thompson applied and was accepted to the UCLA-Tougaloo Public Health Scholars Training Program for the summer following her junior year.

By the end of her experience, she had a new understanding and appreciation for the field. “I learned that public health is really about making sure the overall population is OK,” she says. “It’s

looking at the big picture and addressing problems that affect people’s mental and physical health.”

But for Thompson, the impact of the experience went well beyond the subject matter.

She and the five other Tougaloo Scholars in her cohort were each paired with a UCLA Fielding faculty member to develop their research skills and receive individual mentorship. In Thompson’s case, her mentor was Dr. Courtney Thomas Tobin, assistant professor in FSPH’s Department of Community Health Sciences and a faculty associate at UCLA’s Bunche Center for African American Studies. In addition to assisting Thomas Tobin on her research, which focuses on the impact of race-based stress and coping experiences on psychological and physiological health in the U.S. Black population, Thompson learned the process of conducting her own peer-reviewed studies, from literature reviews and statistical analyses to writing an abstract for a scientific meeting. To give Thompson a better sense of the graduate school experience, Thomas Tobin connected her with the FSPH graduate students on her research team.

And, in the course of their regular meetings, Thomas Tobin provided Thompson with both counsel and inspiration.

“To have a mentor who not only had similar interests, but also looked like me as a Black woman helped me to see what’s possible,” Thompson says. “The fact that Dr. Thomas Tobin cared so much and took the time to work with me was amazing.”

Thomas Tobin relished the opportunity to develop long-term mentoring relationships with students like Thompson as a way to help expand the pipeline of individuals from historically underrepresented communities into graduate school and public health. It was also a chance to pay it forward: As an undergraduate at Xavier University in

“ Everyone was so supportive and compassionate. And having someone who has continued to advise me as I get ready to take the next steps in my life means so much.”

— Xhana Thompson ph.ucla.edu

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Louisiana — which, along with Tougaloo, is one of more than 100 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) identified by the U.S. Department of Education — Thomas Tobin attended a similar program offered at UCLA. “That’s how I learned about research, and it led me to apply to graduate school and go straight into a PhD program,” she says. “Giving undergraduates early exposure to public health and the possibilities available to them is so important.”

As part of the UC-HBCU Initiative, which seeks to improve diversity and strengthen graduate programs in the University of California system by investing in relationships between UC faculty and HBCUs, the UCLA-Tougaloo Public Health Scholars Training Program provides paid training and research placement sites for six Tougaloo College undergraduates each summer for three years.

UC-HBCU Initiative participants who apply to any of UC’s 700 graduate programs have their application fees waived, and admitted PhD applicants receive tuition, fees, and stipend/salary support.

Dr. Michael Prelip (MPH ’85), professor and chair of UCLA Fielding’s Department of Community Health Sciences, and principal investigator of the UCLA-Tougaloo program, explains that the program presented an ideal fit for the school, which already had the infrastructure for such a program in place through the Public Health Scholars Program, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity, in which undergraduates explore public health through hands-on training, structured workshops, group events, volunteer opportunities, and leadership and professional development.

The UC-HBCU Initiative provided the opportunity to further enrich the experience of the Public Health Scholars while introducing 18 Tougaloo students to the field of public health and the potential for fully funded PhD-level training.

“Having well-funded, well-structured programs that

IN MAY, THE TOUGALOO SCHOLARS CAME TO CALIFORNIA FOR A THREEDAY VISIT DURING WHICH THEY MET WITH UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL FACULTY AND GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORS, CONNECTED WITH PROGRAM STAFF, AND TOURED AND LEARNED ABOUT PHD PROGRAMS OFFERED AT UCLA, UC IRVINE, AND UC SAN DIEGO.

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“Giving undergraduates early exposure to public health and the possibilities available to them is so important.”

— Dr. Courtney Thomas Tobin remove financial barriers and bring in students from diverse backgrounds is critical — for both reducing disparities and opening up more opportunities for young people, as well as to benefit the field of public health,” Prelip says. “The students in these pathway programs bring their own personal narratives, aspirations, and expertise in how public health is applied in their worlds, and for us to have that exposure only strengthens our school.”

The UCLA-Tougaloo program has also benefited from the active partnership of Tougaloo College, which has produced many of Mississippi’s leading Black professionals across disciplines. “We know that partnerships such as these change the trajectory and outcomes of our students,” says Dr. Carmen Walters, Tougaloo College’s president. “Our committed and passionate faculty are preparing our scholars here, but learning about health disparities and other issues at a place like the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and using that knowledge to impact communities positively is a priceless opportunity. We hope this partnership will only grow, and that at some point, we can bring UCLA scholars here for an experience at a historically Black college that they wouldn’t have in California.”

The Tougaloo Scholars participate fully in the Public Health Scholars Program, attending lectures and facilitated discussions on public health topics. Together with the Public Health Scholars, they break into health equity groups based on their interest areas, with each group responsible for identifying and framing their public health issue and presenting on it to the other students, as well as leading moderated

discussions based on readings they assign to their peers. The Tougaloo Scholars are also actively engaged in professional development activities, including workshops on resume writing, networking, and writing personal statements.

To develop their research skills, the scholars are paired with a faculty member — along with Thomas Tobin, faculty working with the first cohort included Drs. Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez and May Sudhinaraset from FSPH’s Department of Community Health Sciences; Dr. Brian Cole from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences; Dr. Roch Nianogo from the Department of Epidemiology; and Dr. Kia Skrine Jeffers from the UCLA School of Nursing, who is an associate director of FSPH’s Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health.

For Lindsay Rice, who as UCLA Fielding’s director of pathway programs manages both the UCLA-Tougaloo and Public Health Scholars programs, just as important as the content learned by the student scholars is the support and mentorship they receive from the faculty and staff, both during and after their summer experience. “We work hard to build a sense of community, and are committed to having ongoing relationships with these students,” Rice says. “When you’re from another part of the country and you have people rooting for you and helping you, it can make graduate school feel much more obtainable.”

Alitzel Serrano traces her interest in public health to her participation in Tougaloo College’s Undergraduate Training and Education Center for the Jackson Heart Study, a National Institutes of Health-funded effort involving Tougaloo, Jackson State University, the Mississippi State Department of Health, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Public health’s commitment to reducing health disparities appealed to Serrano, a mathematics major and first-generation college

“As a professor, I feel a strong commitment and responsibility in the formation of a diverse group of researchers.”

— Dr. Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez student who hopes to use her education to improve the health of Latino communities. As a UCLA-Tougaloo Scholar, Serrano learned to appreciate public health issues such as the growing unhoused population, the impact of the built environment, and mass incarceration, the topic on which her health equity group presented. “I learned so much, and interacting with the people in the cohort, it was eye-opening to see others who are so passionate about public health,” she says.

For her research training Serrano was paired with Beltrán-Sánchez, who encouraged her to select her own

ALITZEL SERRANO, ONE OF THE TOUGALOO SCHOLARS, WAS MENTORED BY DR. HIRAM BELTRÁN-SÁNCHEZ, FSPH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF COMMUNITY HEALTH SCIENCES.

study topic. Serrano chose to investigate metabolic syndrome — a cluster of conditions (high levels of blood sugar, triglycerides and blood pressure; low HDL cholesterol; and large waist circumference) in the Mexican American population. Under Beltrán-Sánchez’s guidance, she examined data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to learn more about the importance of risk factors in the population. Serrano continued working with Beltrán-Sánchez on the project after returning to Tougaloo for her senior year, and Beltrán-Sánchez provided support as she began applying to graduate school programs in epidemiology and biostatistics. “He told me that once I got offers, he would help me decide what was best for me, which I really appreciated,” Serrano says.

Beltrán-Sánchez, like Thomas Tobin, was part of a similar program as an undergraduate that matched students with faculty for research; that experience, he says, was fundamental to his decision to pursue a career as an academic researcher. Beltrán-Sánchez hopes his participation as a faculty member in the UCLA-Tougaloo program has the same impact on Serrano. “As a professor, I feel a strong commitment and responsibility in the formation of a diverse group of researchers,” he says. “Alitzel represents a student who has faced many barriers and disadvantages in her studies, and I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with her on research.”

Xhana Thompson has remained in close contact with Thomas Tobin as she considers her future, which could ultimately include following her mentor’s path toward a PhD. “I had such a phenomenal experience,” she says. “It didn’t feel like the typical summer program, in that everyone was so supportive and compassionate. And having someone who has continued to advise me as I get ready to take the next steps in my life means so much.” ph.ucla.edu

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Healthcare Leaders in the Making Four 2022 graduates of FSPH’s programs in the Department of Health Policy and Management are going on to coveted administrative fellowships at prestigious institutions.

EVEN BEFORE ENROLLING in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Executive MPH Program in Health Policy and Management, Bianca Natt had a goal: Upon graduating, Natt hoped to be in a position to earn an administrative fellowship at a prestigious institution. “I want to end up in a leadership role, and I knew that to get there it was important to learn about all of the disciplines and components of healthcare,” says Natt, a recruiter for UCLA Health when she entered the school’s EMPH program.

The UCLA Fielding experience took Natt out of her comfort zone, as she worked with classmates to complete deliverable projects on previously unfamiliar topics such as healthcare marketing, finance, and law. But it was a confidence-builder, Natt says — and it helped her realize her ambition: a position in Johns Hopkins Medicine’s administrative fellow class of 2024.

As part of the two-year program, Natt will rotate through the expansive Johns Hopkins health system, learning from leaders in departments ranging from surgery to human resources, within both inpatient and outpatient settings.

“I’m thrilled to be working for an organization with such a great reputation in healthcare,” Natt says.

“The senior leadership is heavily invested in the development of the fellows, and the fellowship structure will allow me access to these leaders while learning from the departments and teams I will work with. What’s exciting is that nothing is set in stone — there are so many possibilities for where this could lead.”

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Natt is one of four 2022 graduates of UCLA Fielding’s Department of Health Policy and Management — two from the full-time MPH program, two from the EMPH program — to earn coveted administrative fellowships at top institutions in California and beyond. “Managing healthcare systems is complex and challenging,” says Dr. Jack Needleman, the Fred W. and Pamela K. Wasserman Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management. “Major systems, recognizing that they need to cultivate promising future leaders, have set up a limited number of one- to two-year

to do with biomedical technology than with how — and whether — patients access health services. This became especially evident to Tyndall early in the pandemic, when he was part of a team working to develop an FDAapproved COVID-19 test. “The science was relatively straightforward; the real challenge was scaling and getting the test to patients,” Tyndall says.

That realization led to a career change, which started with Tyndall’s enrolling in UCLA Fielding. “I became very interested in the role health systems play as the primary mechanisms for healthcare delivery,” he explains.

“Administrators work on these issues of access, quality, and implementation every day.”

Tyndall’s two-year administrative fellowship at UC San Francisco is divided into two parts: For the first year, he will take on a variety of projects as he explores the department and job functions across the UCSF Health system. Throughout the year he will be paired with a senior administrator working on call to help solve any operational problems that arise. In his second year, Tyndall will work as interim

“ In a field where decision making has the ability to impact very large numbers of people, I know that, with my graduate-level preparation, my own decision making will occur through a public health lens.”

— Joycelin Trujeque administrative fellowships to give their most promising management recruits in-depth experience across the system and mentoring from senior leadership.

These are highly competitive placements and the success of our students in obtaining these fellowships reflects both the strength of the students and the quality of our MPH classroom education and out-of-classroom professional development activities.”

As a clinical and research molecular laboratory scientist, Jack Tyndall saw firsthand that the greatest barrier to improving patient care often has less

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manager of a practice, collaborating with UCSF Health clinical staff in serving patients.

“I’m excited to take advantage of such an incredible learning and career acceleration opportunity,” Tyndall says. “I had no previous experience in healthcare management, but at FSPH I had amazing mentors who allowed me to quickly learn many of the basics of healthcare finance, strategy, and program management, as well as taking on new learning opportunities. All of that prepared me to be a competitive fellowship candidate.”

“ I had no previous experience in healthcare management, but at FSPH I had amazing mentors who allowed me to quickly learn. All of that prepared me to be a competitive fellowship candidate.”

— Jack Tyndall Joycelin Trujeque’s first exposure to public health came as a UCLA undergraduate. Working in hospitals and health clinics as part of her community courses, as well as taking undergraduate courses offered by UCLA Fielding, Trujeque learned about public health’s role in addressing social, economic, environmental, and other factors affecting people’s health. “I had never made the connection between the ailments that lead people to seek medical attention and the social determinants of health,” Trujeque says.

Setting her sights on a career in healthcare management, she completed FSPH’s MPH program. “In a field where decision making has the ability to impact very large numbers of people, I know that, with my graduate-level preparation, my own decision making will occur through a public health lens,” Trujeque says. “I am committed to placing equity, accessibility, and sustainability at the forefront.”

During her two-year administrative fellowship with Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Trujeque will rotate through the organization’s three entities (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Kaiser Foundation Hospital, and the Southern California Permanente Medical Group) as she develops her skills in strategy, operations, and project management. “I’m excited to take on projects in areas that are completely unfamiliar to me, learn from current leaders in the organization, and receive ongoing mentorship and support,” Trujeque says. “I have aspirations to drive

change within healthcare, provide equitable access, and create a positive workplace culture. To be that kind of leader, the insight, exposure, and experience I’ll be getting will be vital.”

Like Bianca Natt, Jessica Thies decided she wanted to do an administrative fellowship before she knew where she’d get her MPH. As much as she loved her job as a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Thies sought to make an impact on a larger scale than through one-on-one patient care. “As nurses, especially in a pediatric ICU, we see only a small part of what goes on in healthcare,” she says. “I wanted to get involved in different departments and see the hospital from outside that clinical environment.”

After learning that many top hospitals offer administrative fellowships, Thies began to look into executive MPH programs that would best prepare her for the experience. Talking with another pediatric ICU nurse who had graduated from UCLA Fielding’s EMPH program and gone on to complete an administrative fellowship, she made her decision.

At City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, Thies will rotate through departments taking on projects, working with assigned mentors and sitting in on executive meetings. “My goal is to always stay grounded through bedside nursing, but I’m looking for a new challenge, and I really enjoy helping my peers be able to do their jobs better,” she explains.

As she embarks on the fellowship, Thies feels well prepared by her UCLA Fielding education. “As much as I benefited from the instruction, I also learned so much from the cohort about how to have conversations on complex healthcare topics with people from different backgrounds,” she says. “Ultimately, that’s what leadership is — sharing experiences with people from different backgrounds and then determining how to work toward the common goal of improving patient outcomes.”

BIANCA NATT

JACK TYNDALL

JOYCELIN TRUJEQUE

JESSICA THIES

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Trusted Source After participating as a volunteer subject in the PfizerBioNTech trial, Dr. Kristen Choi (MS ’18) capitalized on an unexpected news-media platform to communicate clear and accurate information about the COVID-19 vaccines.

SCROLLING THROUGH INSTAGRAM IN AUGUST 2020, DR. KRISTEN CHOI (MS ’18), assistant professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the UCLA School of Nursing, came across an ad that would dramatically alter how she’d spend her days.

Pfizer was seeking participants for the Phase 3 clinical trial of the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and Choi, a registered nurse who sees patients as well as conducting research on mental health and mental healthcare policy, decided to volunteer. Following her second dose, Choi’s fever spiked to nearly 105, with symptoms prompting her to wonder if she had COVID-19.

“We now know fever is a reaction

ABOVE: IN ADDITION TO HER EXTENSIVE MEDIA ENGAGEMENT, CHOI, A NURSE, VOLUNTEERED HER SERVICES IN ADMINISTERING COVID-19 VACCINES ACROSS GREATER LOS ANGELES, REACHING SOME OF THE MOST VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES. OPPOSITE PAGE: SOME OF THE NUMEROUS MEDIA OUTLETS IN WHICH CHOI HAS BEEN QUOTED.

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some people experience, but at the time it was scary because these vaccines were so new,” Choi recalls.

She wrote about the experience, in part to alert other healthcare professionals of the need to prepare patients to understand that the adverse effects were normal, an indication of the body’s immune response. Choi’s article was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on Dec. 7, 2020 — four days before the FDA issued an emergency use authorization that made the Pfizer vaccine the first to be rolled out to the U.S. population. Just like that, Choi found herself barraged with inquiries from news-media outlets seeking her perspective.

Such visibility wasn’t something Choi ever planned, but she has always sought to make an impact through her work — which is what led her to pursue a UCLA Fielding School master’s degree after earning her doctorate in nursing. As a high school student, Choi picked nursing “without giving it much thought,” she says, viewing it as the ideal combination of a science-focused field with a human element. But in nursing school, as much as she loved her interactions with patients, she became discouraged by the barriers nurses faced in their clinical practices, and the inequities in the care patients received.

Choi opted to become a nurse researcher — focusing on health services and policy approaches to mental health, particularly as they affect vulnerable and adolescent populations, while continuing to practice as a child and adolescent psychiatric nurse.

Toward that end, she obtained her MS in FSPH’s Department of Health

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“COVID has taught us that public health communication is an incredibly important responsibility.”

— Dr. Kristen Choi Policy and Management. “It was a great program that allowed me to go outside of my training as a nurse to think about research from the public health perspective, while gaining the data-science and methods skills I needed to do the system-level studies I was interested in,” she says.

Choi sought to use her newfound media platform to address concerns about the vaccines and speak on the results from the clinical trials in ways non-scientists could understand. “Those studies tend to be full of jargon, and a lot of people don’t know how to make sense of the data,” she notes. “I also knew as a nurse that when we give vaccines, we’re often rushed and don’t always do a good job of answering people’s questions and helping them understand why the vaccine is important.”

Choi says she understood the hesitancy many initially felt based on the speed with which the vaccines were developed and the fact that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna

versions were the first to use messenger RNA technology, which teaches cells how to make a protein that will trigger the body’s immune response. That hesitancy became less justifiable, she says, in the face of the overwhelming evidence that has now been compiled on the vaccines’ safety and efficacy.

In research she conducted on vaccine hesitancy, Choi found that people with deeply held anti-vaccine beliefs were unlikely to be moved. “I see my role as targeting those who are on the fence and still open to it,” she says.

While fulfilling media requests, Choi also felt a responsibility to get personally involved. She volunteered all over greater Los Angeles, from the Dodger Stadium mass vaccination site to mobile clinics and community-based sites.

“Seeing the excitement in those early days was one of the most touching experiences of my career,” Choi says. “People were crying and laughing, taking photos and videos, so grateful to be getting vaccinated. To be able to have conversations with them, knowing that in a very small way I got to be part of the science that made it happen, was powerful.”

One of the major driving factors for Choi was to help reach some of the most vulnerable communities, which led her to participate in efforts to bring the vaccine to undocumented migrant workers and individuals living in homeless encampments, as well as other underserved groups.

“Unfortunately, COVID has brought to light the glaring inequities in our healthcare

“It’s okay to seek help.

It’s not a sign of weakness.”

-Washington Post

“It’s a signal that the vaccine is working.”

-Los Angeles Times

“It’s very important health care providers are ready to talk to patients about what to expect from the vaccine…”

-Univision

“…it is impossible for mRNA vaccines to cause COVID-19…”

-New York Times

“Our mental health care systems are falling short in meeting the needs of individuals who are homeless...”

-U.S. News & World Report

system,” Choi says. Her dedication to matters of social justice extends beyond issues related to the pandemic. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police brutality in spring 2020, Choi brought together 20 nursing colleagues to coauthor an article, published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies, reflecting on ways that racism and unjust policing affect the profession, and how nurses could challenge racism in healthcare.

Choi’s selection in late 2020 as the only nurse on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list, which highlights leaders in the field who are younger than 30, was especially meaningful given its timing. Before the onset of the pandemic, the World Health Organization had declared 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife in a nod to their historic contributions. As it turned out, the role of nurses was as critical as ever, but for reasons that couldn’t have been anticipated.

“Knowing that nurses’ impact is often underappreciated, it was a big honor to be recognized, and it was great to get emails from students and younger nurses who were inspired to see that representation,” Choi says.

“I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to communicate information about the vaccines and speak to people’s concerns.

COVID has taught us that public health communication is an incredibly important responsibility.” ph.ucla.edu

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SCHOOL WORK

ADMITTED STUDENTS DAY RETURNS TO CAMPUS

IN APRIL, THE UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL hosted Admitted Students Day on campus for the first time since 2019. Dean Ron Brookmeyer and other members of the school’s senior leadership team welcomed the admitted students, who also met with FSPH student leaders and toured UCLA’s campus.

DR. MUNTU DAVIS NAMED 2022 COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER DR. MUNTU DAVIS, COUNTY HEALTH OFFICER FOR THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH (LACDPH), was named the 2022 featured speaker for the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Commencement Ceremony in June. In his role as the county health officer, Davis serves as the medical expert for all public health matters, including COVID-19, at LACDPH. Prior to joining the department, he was director and county health officer of California’s Alameda County Public Health Department. In addition to holding a Master of Public Health from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Davis earned both his Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Medicine from UCLA. With a specialty in family medicine, he has practiced extensively in both primary care and urgent care clinics, in urban and rural areas across California.

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BOOKSHELF HONORING PROFESSOR STEVEN P. WALLACE

DR. STEVEN P. WALLACE

Recent books by UCLA Fielding School of Public Health authors: Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household

By Emily Abel and Margaret K. Nelson

Epigenetic Epidemiology, Second Edition Edited by Karin Michels

Chapter: “Exercise, Energy Balance, Body Composition, and Cancer Risk” in Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship

By Catherine Carpenter

Chapters: “Global Epidemiology of HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Male Sex Workers: Emerging Approaches in Prevention and Treatment” and “Male Sex Work and Behavioral Health: Structural Risks, Stigma, and Psychosocial Considerations” in The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society

By Matthew Mimiaga, P. Salhaney, P.C. Santostefano, and K.B. Biello

was honored, posthumously, by the American Public Health Association, which renamed its annual lifetime achievement recognition the Steven P.

Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health, Seventh Edition Edited by Roger Detels, Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Fran Baum, Liming Li, and Alastair H Leyland

Wallace Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also honored with the 2021

Aerosol Technology, Third Edition

By William C. Hinds and Yifang Zhu

Change Agent Award by the National Council on Aging. Wallace passed away in March 2021 after serving as a professor in the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Community Health Sciences for 31 years, including six years as chair of the department and five as vice chair; and as an associate director of FSPH’s UCLA Center for

Recipe for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life

By Dana Ellis Hunnes Public Health Emergencies: Case Studies, Competencies, and Essential Services of Public Health Edited by Robert Kim-Farley and Tanya Telfair LeBlanc (includes chapter: “Going Forward: Other Emergencies and Future Challenges,” by Robert Kim-Farley)

Health Policy Research (CHPR) for 25 years. This spring, CHPR and FSPH hosted a celebration of the life and legacy of Wallace. View the video here: ph.ucla.edu/Celebrating SWallace

HONOR ROLL 2021

Chapter: “Lifestyle Changes and Behavioral Approaches for the Cancer Survivor” in Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship

By William McCarthy and Catherine Carpenter

Chapter: “Methamphetamine Use Among Sexual Minority Men: Epidemiology, Consequences of Use, and Treatment Approaches” in Handbook of Substance Misuse and Addictions from Biology to Public Health

By Matthew Mimiaga, E. Lodge, K.B. Biello, and P.K. Valente Chapter: “Epidemiology of Nutrition, Diet, and Cancer Risk” in Nutritional Oncology: Nutrition in Cancer Prevention, Treatment, and Survivorship

By Zuo-Feng Zhang, David Heber, and Qing-Yi Lu Chapter: “Basic Aerosol Science” in Patty’s Industrial Hygiene

By Yifang Zhu and Parker C. Reist

The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health is pleased to honor the donors whose generosity strengthens our school and keeps us at the forefront of public health education, research, and service. This Honor Roll gratefully acknowledges gifts and grants of $1,000 and above made to the school from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. Contributions in any amount are of great importance to the school and are deeply appreciated. We are also grateful to those who give of their time and talents to enhance the educational experiences of our students.

Please visit ph.ucla.edu/honorroll2021 to view the 2021 Honor Roll.

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FACULTY HONORS & SERVICE The following FSPH faculty were listed among the most highly cited in the field from 1960 to 2020, according to Elsevier BV, SciTech Strategies, and published in PLOS Biology: Drs. Ronald Andersen, Onyebuchi Arah, Lawrence Ash, Lester Breslow, Timothy Brewer, Ron Brookmeyer, Arthur Cho, Susan Cochran, Roger Detels, Jared Diamond, Daniel Eisenberg, Joann Elmore, Jose Escarce, Susan Ettner, Jonathan Fielding, Patricia Ganz, Gilbert Gee, Sander Greenland, Neal Halfon, Ron Hays, Jody Heymann, Steven Horvath, Derrick Jelliffe, Michael Jerrett, Marjorie Kagawa-Singer, Niklas Krause, Mark Litwin, James Macinko, Carol Mangione, Vickie Mays, Karin Michels, Donald Morisky, Jack Needleman, Andre Nel, Thomas Rice, Beate Ritz, Michael Rodriguez, Linda Rosenstock, Robert Schiestl, Teresa Seeman, Judith Siegel, Marc Suchard, Irwin Suffet, Elizabeth Yano, ZuoFeng Zhang, and Frederick Zimmerman.

Hamid Arabzadeh received the 2021 President’s and Social Responsibility awards from the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

Dr. Onyebuchi Arah received the 2021 Outstanding Contributions to Epidemiology award from the American College of Epidemiology.

Dr. Thomas Belin was recognized with the Gold Eagle Award from Los Angeles County’s COVID-19 Predictive 36

Modeling Team. His work on the Community Partners in Care study was recognized in the journal Psychiatric Services.

Dr. Arturo Vargas Bustamante was named a senior fellow at FSPH’s UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and served as guest editor of the “Borders, Immigrants & Health” edition of the journal Health Affairs.

Dr. Kristen Choi was named a 2021 Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Susan Cochran was honored by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute with the 2022 Impact Award and served as a guest editor of “When Dying Really Counts,” a special edition of the American Journal of Public Health. She also serves as vice-chair of the UC Systemwide Academic Senate and as faculty representative to the Regents.

Dr. Lara Cushing was appointed to the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Presidential Chair in Health Equity at UCLA FSPH, as well as to the Biomonitoring California Scientific Guidance Panel.

In addition, her work was recognized with the Best Environmental Justice Paper Award by the North American Chapter of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE).

Dr. Roger Detels delivered the 47th Lester Breslow Distinguished Lecture at UCLA FSPH. Dr. Daniel Eisenberg was named mental health program

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director at FSPH’s UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Dr. David Eisenman was named to the Standing Committee for the CDC Center for Preparedness and Response, an external advisory committee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Jose Escarce was elected to the Council of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Patricia Ganz was elected as a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.

Dr. Risha Gidwani was appointed to the National Quality Forum’s Cost and Efficiency Standing Committee.

Dr. Sander Greenland was among the most highly cited researchers in the world in 2021, according to Clarivate Analytics.

Dr. Ron Hays was among the most highly cited researchers in the world in 2021, according to Clarivate Analytics.

Dr. Julia Heck is a co-author of research listed in the National Cancer Institute’s Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program Research Highlights for 2021.

Dr. Steven Horvath was among the most highly cited researchers in the world in 2021, according to Clarivate Analytics.

Dr. Michael Jerrett was among the most highly cited researchers in the world in 2021, according to Clarivate Analytics.

He received the 2021 Excellence

in Exposure Science Award from the International Society of Exposure Science, and was recognized with a UCLA Faculty of the Year award at the 2021 Green Gala.

Dr. Gerald Kominski is a co-author of work recognized as among the journal Health Affairs’ top 10 studies of 2021.

Dr. Gang Li has been selected the 2022 president-elect for the International Chinese Statistical Association, and was appointed co-editor-in-chief (2022-2024) for the Electronic Journal of Statistics, published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Bernoulli Society.

Dr. Jingyi Jessica Li was named associate editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, and serves on the UCLA Graduate Council Diversity Fellowship Selection Committee, the Queen’s Road Foundation Fellowship Program Selection Committee, the UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Selection Committee, and the UCLA Committee on Data, Information Technology, and Privacy.

Dr. James Macinko was a co-author of work recognized as among the journal Health Affairs’ top 10 studies of 2021.

Dr. Carol Mangione was named chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and was elected to the Association of American Physicians.

Dr. Elizabeth Rose Mayeda’s research was chosen as an

“Editor’s Choice” paper in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Dr. Vickie Mays received a Presidential Citation for Science from the American Psychological Association and was honored by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute with the 2022 Impact Award. She served as guest editor of “When Dying Really Counts,” a special edition of the American Journal of Public Health, and was named senior fellow at FSPH’s UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Dr. Matthew Mimiaga was invited to serve on the UCLA Institutional Review Board and the advisory board for UCLA Extension’s behavioral health program. He was recognized with the Uncommon Bruin of the Game Award, UCLA Women’s Basketball, in 2020 and 2021.

Dr. Corrina Moucheraud was recognized as a partner for the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Vaccine Acceptance & Demand Initiative 2021 Social and Behavioral Grants Program and was named an associate director of FSPH’s UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. She is a co-author of work recognized as among the journal Health Affairs’ top 10 studies of 2021.

Dr. Roch Nianogo received the 2022 Karen Toffler Charitable Trust’s Toffler Scholar Award.

Dr. Anne Pebley serves as chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Population.

Dr. Ninez Ponce was named to the Robert Wood Johnson

Foundation’s National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems, and presented at a Filipino American History Month panel hosted by the White House Office of Public Engagement and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. In addition, Ponce has served on the technical expert panel for the NIMHD Project on Economic Burden of Health Disparities; as a panelist before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, “Equity Series Panelist, Measuring What We Value: Bridging Gaps in Data and Reporting on Race and Ethnicity”; as a member of the WHO Consortium on Metrics and Evidence for Healthy Ageing (CMEHA); and was named an associate editor for JAMA Health Forum and a member of the editorial board for the journal Health Services Research, effective July 1.

Dr. Anne Rimoin was appointed to the Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health at UCLA FSPH. She served as keynote speaker on “COVID-19 and Beyond: Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It Starts” at the LABest 2021 conference.

Dr. Beate Ritz was named an ISEE fellow by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology and received the 2022 Kenneth Rothman Career Accomplishment Award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research.

Dr. Marc Suchard received the 2021 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research from the National Institute of

Statistical Sciences. He was among the most highly cited researchers in the world in 2021, according to Clarivate Analytics.

Dr. Donatello Telesca was elected executive secretary of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.

Dr. Paul Torrens received the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Partners in Care Foundation.

Dr. May Wang was appointed to Los Angeles County’s Food Equity Roundtable Technical Advisory Team.

Dr. Kenneth Wells’ film and opera “Veteran Journeys” received the Special Jury Courage Award at the 12th Annual Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, and awards in the categories of Docudrama Feature, Social Issues, Excellence in Editing, and Outstanding Excellence: Original Score, from the “Docs Without Borders” International Film Festival. In addition, his work as co-principal investigator for the Community Partners in Care (CPIC) study was recognized in the journal Psychiatric Services.

at the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions.

Dr. Xi Zhu was appointed to the Paul Torrens Chair in Healthcare Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Yifang Zhu received the 2021 Outstanding Reviewer Award from the journal Aerosol Science and Technology, published by the American Association for Aerosol Research, and was recognized with a UCLA Faculty of the Year award at the 2021 Green Gala.

Dr. Frederick Zimmerman was elected to the National Academy of Social Insurance.

STAY CONNECTED WITH UCLA FSPH

Dr. Nathan Wong received the 2021 Joseph Stokes III, MD Award for lifetime achievement from the American Society for Preventive Cardiology.

Dr. Elizabeth Yano led a research team that received the Veterans Affairs Health System Impact Award for its research on sexual harassment.

SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter and magazine: ph.ucla.edu/subscriptions

Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang delivered the 2022 Saxon Graham Lecture ph.ucla.edu

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GRANTS & CONTRACTS

DAVID EISENMAN Working to Ensure the Sustainability of the National Health Security Preparedness Index Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $81,936

JAMES HUYNH AND CHANDRA FORD Health Policy Research Scholars Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $124,000 for four years

This section includes new grants and con-

CHANDRA FORD COVID-19 Stigma Project National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Inc. & Howard University, $1,031,198

MOIRA INKELAS AND MITCHELL WONG Impact of COVID-19 Testing and Mitigation on Equitable Return-to-School in the Second Largest U.S. School District National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, $1,451,150

tracts awarded in 2020-21. Due to space limitations, only funds of $50,000 or more are listed, by principal investigator.

SUDIPTO BANERJEE Collaborative Research: Statistical Inference for High-Dimensional Spatial-Temporal Process Models National Science Foundation, $260,000 for three years ARTHUR CHO Adverse Health Effects of Volatile Organic Compounds Health Effects of Air Pollution Foundation (formerly Brain and Lung Tumor and Air Pollution Foundation), $467,952 for two years EMMELINE CHUANG MA 3 — Task Order 1: Qualitative Research, Project Management and Statistical Analysis Department of Veterans Affairs, $300,000 BURTON COWGILL Hands Off Tobacco and E-Cigarettes!: Tobacco & E-Cigarette Use Prevention for Deaf Youth UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, $973,837 for three years LARA CUSHING Toxic Tides: Risks and Resilience to Coastal Flooding of Contaminated Sites Environmental Protection Agency, $799,999 for three years ALINA DORIAN AND MICHAEL PRELIP Pandemic Workforce Training Academy for California — FEMA/COVID (Pathways) California Department of Public Health & University of California, San Francisco, $1,368,123 for two years DANIEL EISENBERG 3/4 Adapting Treatments for Suicidal College Students: A Multisite Trial 3 National Institute of Mental Health & University of Oregon, $135,271 for two years Harnessing Mobile Technology to Reduce Mental Health Disorders in College Populations National Institute of Mental Health & Washington University, $587,021 for three years 38

PATRICIA GANZ A Model Clinical/Translational Research Program for Breast Cancer Survivors — A Focus on Cognitive Function After Breast Cancer Treatment The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, $175,000 An Interactive Survivorship Program to Improve Healthcare REsources [INSPIRE] for Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Survivors National Cancer Institute & Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, $101,576 for three years Phase II Pilot Study Evaluating the Feasibility of Delivery and Evaluation of a Digital CognitiveBehavioral Stress Management (CBSM) Device (ATTUNE™) for Treatment of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Stage I-III Breast or Stage I-III Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Blue Note Therapeutics, Inc., $108,568 for one-anda-half years The EPICS (Engaging Primary Care in Cancer Survivorship) Study: A Randomized Trial of Novel Models of Care for Cancer Survivors National Cancer Institute & Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, $198,695 for five years GILBERT GEE Reducing Racial Disparities in Alzheimer’s Disease/ Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias: Addressing Structural Discrimination (LEADR) National Institute on Aging & John Hopkins University, $163,580 for four years PAMINA GORBACH Activity Spaces for HIV Risk and Prevention Among Diverse Men Who Have Sex With Men in Los Angeles National Institute on Drug Abuse & University of California, Santa Barbara, $129,111 for two years Collaborating Consortium of Cohorts Producing NIDA Opportunities (C3PNO) COVID-19 Administrative (Supplement) National Institute on Drug Abuse, $400,898 JODY HEYMANN COVID-19 Impact of COVID Policy Choices on Women and Girls Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, $950,000 for two years

U C L A F I E L D I N G S C H O O L O F P U B L I C H E A LT H M AG A Z I N E

COREY JACINTO AND FRED ZIMMERMAN Health Policy Research Scholars Cohort Four — 2020 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $124,000 for four years LEEKA KHEIFETS Update to a Pooled Analysis of Childhood Leukemia and Magnetic Fields Electrical Power Research Institute, $520,123 for oneand-a-half years GERALD KOMINSKI California Simulation of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) 2021-2023 California Health Benefit Exchange (Covered CA), $850,000 for two years Using CalSIM to Model Health Coverage in Rapidly Changing Times California Wellness Foundation & University of California, Berkeley, $72,000 for two years JAMES MACINKO Understanding and Engineering the Ecosystem of Firearms: Prevalence, Law, and FirearmRelated Harms National Science Foundation & New York University, $345,057 for four years The Impact of Social Determinants, Conditional Cash Transfers and Primary Health Care on HIV/AIDS: An Integrated Retrospective and Forecasting Approach Based on a Cohort of 100 Million Brazilians National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases & Federal University of Bahia, $776,035 for five years FOLASADE (FOLA) MAY Ablon Scholars Award Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center & the Broad Stem Cell Research Center, $300,000 for three years ELIZABETH ROSE MAYEDA Optimizing Generalizability of Biomarker Studies for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias with Epidemiologic Tools National Institute on Aging, $582,543

YING-YING MENG State and Local Policies on Cigarette Smoking Behaviors and Disparities UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, $896,703 for three years MATTHEW MIMIAGA Brief Acceptance-Based Retention Intervention for Newly Diagnosed HIV Patients National Institute of Mental Health & Brown University, $81,790 for four years Developing and Pilot Testing and Adaptive Intervention to Facilitate Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Uptake and Maximize PrEP Adherence Among At-Risk Transgender Women National Institute of Mental Health, $647,374 for three years Digital, Limited Interaction Efficacy Trial of LifeSkills Mobile to Reduce HIV Incidence in Young Transgender Women National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, $8,822,687 for five years Integrated Behavioral Activation and HIV Risk Reduction Counseling for MSM With Stimulant Abuse National Institute on Drug Abuse, $1,097,075 for two years MATTHEW MIMIAGA AND ROGER DETELS Los Angeles Clinical Research Site for the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study/Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study — MWCCS COVID-19 Supplement Activities National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, $110,256 Study of Hearing and Balance in Middle Aged and Aging Men and Women in the MACS-WIHS Combined Cohort Study (Supplement) National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, $59,522 NINEZ PONCE A Model for Data-Driven Policy Making in the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Community Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $500,000 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) California Department of Public Health, $3,400,000 for four years; California Health Benefit Exchange (Covered CA), $1,057,400 for two years; Harbage Consulting, $254,071 for two-and-a-half years; California Healthcare Foundation, $701,517 for two-and-a-half years; California Department of Health Care Services (DHS), $4,599,000 for four years; The California Endowment, $75,000 (Supplement); The California Endowment, $3,000,000 for two years California Health Interview Survey: COVID-19 Data Collection and Dissemination California Wellness Foundation, $75,000 California Health Interview Survey: Tracking and Reporting on Coverage and Access 2019-2020 (Supplement)

California Healthcare Foundation, $80,000 Individual, Family and Community Factors of Gun Violence Affecting California Communities RAND Corporation, $596,171 for three years Trends and Scenarios for California’s Future: Universal Effective Coverage and Population Health Equity California Community Foundation, $90,000 NADEREH POURAT Evaluation of Housing for a Healthy California (HHC) Program California Department of Housing and Community Development, $449,249 for three-and-a-half years Integrating Health and Human Services for HighRisk Medicaid Beneficiaries During the COVID-19 Pandemic Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $200,000 for two years California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP) Task Force California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), $168,000 ANNE RIMOIN COVID-19 Vaccination in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Assessment of Behavioral and Social Determinants for Vaccination in Target Populations for Improving Communication Strategies The Task Force for Global Health, Inc., $171,798 for two years Monitoring and Evaluation of Haut Lomami and Tanganyika Provinces Routine Immunization and Strengthening Program Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation & PATH, $573,418 for two years Strengthening Pharmacovigilance Capacity in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Utilizing Archival Records to Assess Rates of Maternal Vaccination and Birth Outcomes of Interest Throughout Kinshasa (Supplement) Food and Drug Administration, $123,430 for two years BEATE RITZ Microbiome, Environment, and Parkinson’s Disease (MEP) Pesticide Exposures and the Gut Microbiome in Parkinson’s Disease National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, $3,212,322 for five years Pesticide Exposure, Systems Biology, and Parkinson’s Disease Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, $399,063 for two years Pilot Population-Based Case-Control Study of Environmental Risk Factors for Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) The Multiple System Atrophy Coalition, $152,570

MARISSA SEAMANS Associations Between Household Polypharmacy and Adherence to Medications for Substance Use Disorders and Health Outcomes PhRMA Foundation, $100,000 DAMLA SENTURK Multilevel Time-Dynamic Modeling of Hospitalization and Survival in Patients on Dialysis National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, $2,987,891 for five years CRYSTAL SHAW AND THOMAS BELIN Link, Transport, Integrate: A Bayesian Data Integration Framework for Scalable Algorithmic Dementia Classification in PopulationRepresentative Studies National Institute on Aging, $119,972 for two-anda-half years MAY SUDHINARASET COVID-19 — Experiences Engaging the Health System for Maternal and Neonatal Health Services in Kenya Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, $100,000 Putting the Power in Patients’ Hands: PersonCentered Abortion Care and Clinical Health Outcomes for No-Test Telemedicine and ClinicBased Medication Abortion in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Society of Family Planning, $99,074 CANDACE TSAI Development of a Silica Dust Direct Reading Sampler With Selectivity for Dust Components and Size Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & Colorado State University, $293,902 for three years The Effect of Coal and Mine Respirable Dust Size on Lung Cells and Exposure Assessment Alpha Foundation for the Improvement of Mine Safety and Health, Inc., $343,813 for three years A Study of Protective Clothing to Prevent Nanoparticle Exposure and Surface Contamination Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $235,743 for two years ZUO-FENG ZHANG Molecular Epidemiology Cancer Training Program National Cancer Institute, $1,607,758 for five years HUA ZHOU Division of Mathematical Sciences/National Institute of General Medical Sciences 2: Statistical Methods and Computational Algorithms for Biobank Data National Science Foundation, $955,817 for four years ph.ucla.edu

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39

TRANSFORMATIVE INVESTMENTS

Securing a Mentor’s Legacy Numerous healthcare management leaders have benefited from the mentorship of Dr. Paul Torrens, FSPH professor emeritus, and now many have returned the favor through their contributions to an endowed chair in his name. erations to come — and that the culture of collegiality and leadership he imparted to so many of us, which we then brought to our own organizations, is passed on to future generations of students at the UCLA Fielding School,” Gordon says of the Torrens chair, which is housed in the school’s Department of Health Policy and Management and its Center for Healthcare Management — home to the Paul Torrens Health Forum, a monthly series of public programs in which health leaders discuss timely industry topics.

Gordon’s “easy ask” has led to donations of nearly $1.7 million, with the largest contributions following the initial gift coming from Dr. Arthur (Artie) Southam (MPH ’84), a member of Kaiser Permanente’s AFTER A $1 MILLION GIFT from Tom and

two decades. After Torrens invited Gordon

Edna Gordon and the Don S. Levin Trust

to deliver a guest lecture to his students in

whose president and CEO, Thomas Priselac,

established the Paul Torrens Chair in Health-

1995, the pair forged a close friendship and

teaches in the school’s executive MPH pro-

care Management at the UCLA Fielding

Gordon began an active and continuing role

gram. When the fund reaches $2 million, it

School of Public Health, Tom Gordon vowed

at the school as a preceptor, mentor, and

will become the school’s second permanent

that he was just getting started. Determined

guest lecturer. He currently teaches a course

endowed chair.

to find others to join him in honoring Dr.

on leadership in the executive MPH program

Dr. Xi Zhu, the FSPH associate professor

Paul Torrens — a professor emeritus who

within FSPH’s Department of Health Policy

appointed as the first Torrens chair holder,

has been a member of the school’s faculty

and Management.

will further the culture Torrens cultivated. An

national executive team; and Cedars-Sinai,

since 1972 — Gordon began reaching out to

“This helps to ensure that Paul Torrens’

expert in organizational behavior and theory,

senior healthcare executives, many of them

legacy at UCLA will be remembered for gen-

Zhu is dedicated to both real-world impact

FSPH graduates.

and mentoring master’s and PhD students.

He didn’t have to twist any arms. “Every-

“The Paul Torrens Chair is an incredible honor

one just started writing checks,” Gordon says,

for me because it recognizes the importance

smiling. “It was the easiest ask of my life.”

of healthcare management in contributing to

The outpouring of support reflects Tor-

the public good,” Zhu says.

rens’ influence in the healthcare field, par-

“Endowed chairs are invaluable to our

ticularly in Southern California. Trained as a

school’s ability to recruit and retain outstand-

physician, Torrens went on to a long and dis-

ing faculty and an ideal way for generous

tinguished career in healthcare management

donors to support research and training while

and health policy. But arguably his greatest

TOP: DR. PAUL TORRENS SPEAKING AT THE

either affixing their legacy to UCLA or hon-

impact has come from the teaching and men-

ENDOWED CHAIR ANNOUNCEMENT DINNER

oring another’s,” says Dr. Ron Brookmeyer,

torship he has provided in the 50 years since he joined the UCLA Fielding School faculty.

Among those Torrens inspired was Gordon, who served as executive vice president of Cedars-Sinai Health System for more than

40

CELEBRATING HIS NEARLY 50 YEARS AT THE UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL AS LEADER, TEACHER, AND

dean of the UCLA Fielding School and dis-

MENTOR, AND HIS JOY IN BEING ABLE TO HELP

tinguished professor of biostatistics. “Dr.

SHAPE MANY DISTINGUISHED CAREERS IN PUBLIC

Paul Torrens’ incredible impact is reflected in

HEALTH. IMMEDIATELY ABOVE: TORRENS AND LEAD DONOR TOM GORDON IN A PLAYFUL MOMENT AT

the accomplished graduates who have come

THE SAME EVENT.

together to establish this chair in his name.”

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PRACTICING WHAT WE TEACH

Through their 400-hour internships, UCLA Fielding School students gain invaluable experience in real-world public health settings. Everyone wins — students, the organizations they assist, and the communities they serve. But many internship partners cannot offer stipends, leaving students unable to meet basic living costs without taking on additional work.

YOU CAN HELP

Join with us to ensure students can pursue their passions as they take their first steps toward becoming public health leaders. Contact publichealth@support.ucla.edu or call (310) 825-6464 to learn how you can support student internships.

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