Gift to UCR clinic aims to assist local unhoused population

Funding from San Manuel Band of Mission Indians grants greater medical access to low-income residents

2024-05-01

(Press-News.org) RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Hulen Place Clinic, which UCR Health, the clinical arm of the School of Medicine (SOM) at the University of California, Riverside, opened in September 2023 to address the health and well-being of the unhoused and underserved populations in the County of Riverside has received a gift of $500,000 from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a sovereign American Indian tribe of Serrano people in San Bernardino County, California.

Located about two miles from downtown Riverside and adjacent to an emergency shelter and temporary housing units, the clinic provides primary care, mental health services, immediate non-emergency medical services, preventive medical care, diabetes supplies, and blood pressure monitors to unhoused individuals and low-income communities.

Acknowledging that there is no single solution to address the unhoused crisis in Inland Southern California, Timothy Collins, CEO of UCR Health, said leaders and leading organizations must step forward and not stand on the sidelines, expecting others to solve the problem.

“The gracious gift of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians demonstrates they are committed to giving back to their communities and investing in solutions to complex problems,” Collins said. “The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and their partnership with UCR Health will proactively address the needs of the unhoused population in Riverside County and increase access to primary care, behavioral health, and supportive care and services necessary to improve their lives.”

Funding from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians will allow the clinic to ensure easy in-person and telehealth access for unhoused and low-income residents needing care. The funding also will allow the clinic to serve as a teaching site for SOM residents and medical students who are training to become physicians and want to work and reside in the community.

The City of Riverside is home to approximately 20% of the County of Riverside’s homeless population, estimated at 3,725 in 2023. The 2,500 square-foot-clinic is part of the only full-service homeless facility in western Riverside County. The clinic previously served the unhoused under the Health to Hope organization until it closed in May 2019. SOM and UCR Health partnered with the City of Riverside to reopen the clinic.

“This clinic is an investment that can help reduce costly hospital admissions and, by offering same-day appointments, it provides services to individuals who might otherwise end up waiting for hours in an emergency room,” said Dr. Deborah Deas, vice chancellor for health sciences and the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean of SOM. “The gift to the clinic from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians will go a long way to assist the underserved people in our community.”

Currently, two physicians — Dr. Moazzum Bajwa and Dr. Marc Debay — work on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the clinic, each provider seeing approximately 10 to 15 patients per day. At full operation, the clinic will annually serve approximately 4,800 patients, including 1,300 chronically unhoused. Services will target underserved children and adults needing preventive health care and those with chronic health conditions (asthma, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and mental health). The clinic will also coordinate multispecialty care offerings (addiction medicine, endocrinology, women’s health, cardiovascular), and preventive services (immunization and health screenings).

“Many of our patients at the clinic have primary care doctors but they don’t necessarily have easy access to them because they no longer live close to the doctors, have no transportation, and are living in encampments or transitional housing — all of which challenges their ability to maintain continuity with their doctors,” said Bajwa, an assistant clinical professor of health sciences at UCR. “Dr. Debay and I work at the clinic because it matters to the patients, and it challenges us to be at the top of our game as family physicians. Funding is one factor limiting the number of patients we can see here. Gifts, such as the one from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, allow us to keep our doors open.”

The medical school plans to grow the clinic eventually into a Federally Qualified Health Center, allowing it to receive federal funds to provide healthcare services. Located at 2880 Hulen Place, Riverside, California, the clinic currently operates from 8 am to 5 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It offers walk-in and same-day appointments. More about the clinic.

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Research breakthrough on birth defect affecting brain size

2024-05-01

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Nonsense-mediated RNA decay, or NMD, is an evolutionarily conserved molecular mechanism in which potentially defective messenger RNAs, or mRNAs (genetic material that instructs the body on how to make proteins), are degraded. Disruption of the NMD pathway can lead to neurological disorders, immune diseases, cancers, and other pathologies. Mutations in human NMD regulators are seen in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and intellectual disability. Why NMD mutations are enriched ...

Researchers offer US roadmap to close the carbon cycle

2024-05-01

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and six other Department of Energy national laboratories have developed a United States-based perspective for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. The roadmap was recently published in the journal Nature Reviews Chemistry. The researchers from the DOE laboratories — ORNL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory — pooled their diverse expertise to devise a roadmap to “defossilize” portions of the U.S. economy by reducing carbon emissions ...

Precipitation may brighten Colorado River’s future

2024-05-01

The Colorado River’s future may be a little brighter than expected, according to a new modeling study from CIRES researchers. Warming temperatures, which deplete water in the river, have raised doubts the Colorado River could recover from a multi-decade drought. The new study fully accounts for both rising temperatures and precipitation in the Colorado’s headwaters, and finds precipitation, not temperature, will likely continue to dictate the flow of the river for the next 25 years. Precipitation falling in the river’s headwaters region is likely to be more abundant ...

Identifying risks of human flea infestations in plague-endemic areas of Madagascar

2024-05-01

Madagascar is one of the last places where outbreaks of human bubonic plague still happen regularly. Fleas carrying the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis can spread the disease through their bites. And while a species commonly known as “the rat flea” has been fingered as the main culprit in plague outbreaks, a species known as “the human flea” may play a secondary role. As an investigator during plague outbreaks in rural Madagascar, medical entomologist Adelaide Miarinjara knew that many households were teeming with these human fleas. Miarinjara grew up in the ...

Archaea can be picky parasites

2024-05-01

A parasite that not only feeds of its host, but also makes the host change its own metabolism and thus biology. NIOZ microbiologists Su Ding and Joshua Hamm, Nicole Bale, Jaap Damsté and Anja Spang have shown this for the very first time in a specific group of parasitic microbes, so-called DPANN archea. Their study, published in Nature Communications, shows that these archaea are very ‘picky eaters’, which might drive their hosts to change the menu. Archaea are a distinct group of microbes, similar to bacteria [see box]. The team of NIOZ microbiologists studies the so-called ...

EPA underestimates methane emissions from landfills, urban areas

2024-05-01

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from landfills, urban areas and U.S. states, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The researchers combined 2019 satellite observations with an atmospheric transport model to generate a high-resolution map of methane emissions, which was then compared to EPA estimates from the same year. The researchers found: Methane emissions from landfills are 51% higher compared to EPA estimates Methane emissions from 95 urban areas are 39% higher than EPA estimates Methane emissions ...

Feathers, cognition and global consumerism in colonial Amazonia

2024-05-01

Amazonia is the home of the largest variety of birds in the world. In such a unique environment, craft cultures have flourished by translating the beauty and creativity of environmental materials like feathers into stunning pieces of art. “The Material Creativity of Affective Artifacts in the Dutch Colonial World,” a new article in Current Anthropology by Stefan Hanß of the University of Manchester, examines artisanal featherwork within the context of early modern colonialism ...

Satellite images of plants’ fluorescence can predict crop yields

2024-05-01

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers and collaborators have developed a new framework that allows scientists to predict crop yield without the need for enormous amounts of high-quality data – which is often scarce in developing countries, especially those facing heightened food insecurity and climate risk. In many parts of the world, crop yields are dropping, largely due to the effects of climate change. According to a recent Cornell study, over the last four decades, for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, net farm income decreased by 66%.  Farmers in developed countries can often rely on big datasets ...

Machine learning tool identifies rare, undiagnosed immune disorders through patients’ electronic health records

2024-05-01

Researchers say a machine learning tool can identify many patients with rare, undiagnosed diseases years earlier, potentially improving outcomes and reducing cost and morbidity. The findings, led by researchers at UCLA Health, are described in Science Translational Medicine. “Patients who have rare diseases may face prolonged delays in diagnosis and treatment, resulting in unnecessary testing, progressive illness, psychological stresses, and financial burdens,” said Manish Butte, MD, PhD, a UCLA professor in pediatrics, human genetics, and microbiology/immunology who cares for these patients in his clinic at UCLA. “Machine learning and other artificial intelligence ...

MD Anderson researcher Sharon Dent elected to prestigious National Academy of Sciences

2024-05-01

HOUSTON ― Sharon Dent, Ph.D., professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Dent is a global leader in the field of chromatin research whose foundational work has helped define the role of chromatin in cancer growth and development. Dent is one of 120 members and 24 international members elected this year in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAS, established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research. With ...

Gift to UCR clinic aims to assist local unhoused population

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: