SC CTSI’s town hall in Nickerson Gardens serves as a catalyst for community collaboration in the pursuit of health equity

SC CTSI’s Community Engagement core group pioneers a model for trust and collaboration between academia and under-resourced communities. The initiative, based in Nickerson Gardens, addresses healthcare challenges identified through focused listening sessions.

By Andrea Diaz

Community members at a meeting in a gymnasium

Photo by Andrea Diaz

In addition to improving clinical care and health outcomes through cutting-edge research, the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) is also committed to addressing the unique healthcare challenges faced by under-resourced communities.

The Community Engagement (CE) core group at SC CTSI have initiated a place-based approach in Nickerson Gardens, which is the largest public housing development west of the Mississippi and home to over 3,000 residents in South Los Angeles. The goal is to tackle the unmet health needs, which the CE team identified through conducting eight confidential listening sessions from June to August 2023. These sessions were facilitated in both Spanish and English, engaging residents in their preferred language to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the community’s health challenges. (…Read More)