Community Engagement Toolkits

These toolkits help institutions engage their academic and local communities in dialogue to identify actions individuals or institutions can take to move communities toward health and health care equity.

If you have any questions or want to share your institution’s experience with the toolkits, please email healthequityresearch@aamc.org.

Achieving Health Equity and Social Justice for Newly Arrived Immigrants in Arizona and Beyond

The 2019 Achieving Health Equity and Social Justice for Newly Arrived Immigrants in Arizona and Beyond Community Engagement Toolkit features videos and resources that community members and academic health centers can use to: 

• Understand the critical issues regarding the health and health care of newly arrived immigrants including migrant workers, refugees, and asylum-seeking populations and undocumented individuals.
• Understand the role of policy and social determinants of health in creating and perpetuating health care inequities among newly arrived populations.
• Strategize and develop the role for academic medical centers across clinical, educational, and research missions to improve the health and health care of immigrant populations.
   

We encourage you to use the Achieving Health Equity and Social Justice for Newly Arrived Immigrants in Arizona and Beyond videos to learn more about the unique needs and inequities faced by newly arrived immigrants in and in Arizona and the United States, and to continue the dialogue about how academic medicine – across its research, education, clinical, and diversity and inclusion missions – can improve the health and well-being of immigrant populations. 

Patients share how being an immigrant has affected their health, and provide recommendations for medical students about how to better provide care for immigrant populations.

Using the voices of community leaders including physicians, nurses, and social workers, this video highlights the pressing need to educate, train, and inspire a new workforce of healthcare and research professionals who are knowledgeable about the impacts of immigration status on health.

Media

• Arizona Impact: Community-based Care Saves Lives
• Center for Disease Control’s Refugee Health Profiles
• Department of Homeland Security Refugees and Asylees
• Refugee Health Orientation Videos

Research

• Acosta, David A, and Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola. “Academic health centers and care of undocumented immigrants in the United States: servant leaders or uncourageous followers?.” Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges vol. 89,4 (2014): 540-3.
• Arizona State University Morrison Institute for Public Policy Purgatory: In-between Violence and Immigration Policy
• Banke-Thomas, A., et al. “Experiences of refugee women in accessing and utilizing a refugee-focused prenatal clinic in the United States: A mixed methods study.” Glob Womens Health 1 (2017): 14-20.
• Johnson-Agbakwu, Crista E., et al. “Mental health screening among newly arrived refugees seeking routine obstetric and gynecologic care.” Psychological services 11.4 (2014): 470.
• Kaiser Family Foundation Health Coverage and Care of Undocumented Immigrants

Social Justice Behind and Beyond the Bars: Criminal Justice, Health, and Academic Medicine

The 2018 AAMC Social Justice Behind and Beyond the Bars: Criminal Justice Health and Academic Medicine Community Engagement Toolkit features videos, resources, discussion questions that community members and academic health centers can use to:

• Understand the critical issues in Correctional Health
• Understand the role of policy and the social determinants of health in creating and perpetuating mass incarceration and health inequities among criminal justice populations
• Understand the role of academic medical centers in the provision of health care, education, and the conduct of research to improve the health and well-being of criminal justice-involved populations

Videos

We encourage you to use the Social Justice Behind and Beyond the Bars: Criminal Justice Health and Academic Medicine videos to learn about the unique needs and inequities faced by the currently and formerly incarcerated and their families, and what Academic Medicine – across its research, education, clinical and diversity and inclusion missions – is and could be doing to improve the health and well-being for this community.

This video explores how incarceration impacts personal health and well-being.

This video provides a glimpse at the health care received while incarcerated.

This video explores topics about the health care received after being released from jail or prison.

During this video, the interviewees discuss how incarceration has impacted the health and well-being of their families.

During this video, interviewees provide recommendations for medical students, doctors, the health care system and society as a whole about how to better provide care for those who are and have been criminally justice involved.

Toolkit Resources

• Social Justice Behind and Beyond the Bars - Toolkit Guide

• Session Guide PowerPoint Slides

• Group Discussion Questions

• Learn Serve Lead PowerPoint

Additional Resources

Medical Education

• UMass Health and Criminal Justice Program
  The Health and Criminal Justice Program, a part of UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division, focuses on research and scholarship, education, service, and consulting for this population.

• Video: How Prison Can Open a Window to Better Health
  Jennifer Clarke, MD and medical program director for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, explains the advantages of being a prison doctor.

Research

• The State of Research Funding From the National Institutes of Health for Criminal Justice Health Research

Clinical Care

• Maruschak, L., Chari, K. A., Simon, A. E., & DeFrances, C. J. (2016). National Survey of Prison Health Care: Selected Findings. National health statistics reports, (96), 1-23.

• Trestman, R. L., Ferguson, W., & Dickert, J. (2015). Behind bars: the compelling case for academic health centers partnering with correctional facilities. Academic Medicine, 90(1), 16-19.

• Video: The Challenges of Being a Prison Health Care Provider
  Warren Ferguson, MD, Vice Chair of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, outlines the unique set of competencies prison health care providers need to have.

Policy

• Ferguson, W. J., Cloud, D., Spaulding, A. C., Shelton, D., Trestman, R. L., Altice, F. L., ... & Taxman, F. S. (2016). A call to action: a blueprint for academic health sciences in the era of mass incarceration. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, 27(2), 5-17.

Community Resources

• Video: Long-Term Recovery Begins with Culturally Informed Care
  Tammy Weiner, director of operations and clinical director at The Hector Reyes House, discusses the program's unique approach to helping Latino men--some of whom have been incarcerated--recover from substance abuse for good.

Community Engagement, Precision Medicine, and Native Health

The 2017 AAMC Community Engagement Toolkit features presentations, discussion questions, and interviews with 17 urban-dwelling Native Americans that academic health centers can use to engage their communities in dialogue about the perceived risks and benefits of participating in the NIH All of Us Research Program and other research efforts.  The All of Us Research Program was designed to deploy genetic, clinical, behavioral, and social data to deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.

Videos

We encourage you to share the videos with your colleagues to assist with facilitating the conversation about concrete actions that an individual or an institution can take to engage diverse local communities, including Native populations, in discussions about and participation in research, generally and in genetic research, specifically. These videos do not address concerns from a tribal sovereignty perspective. 

Community Engagement, Precision Medicine, and Native Health, Part 1. The perspectives from 17 urban-dwelling Native Americans/Alaskan Natives about the contributors to health. This video does not address concerns from a tribal sovereignty perspective. Additional resources are available from the National Congress of American Indians.