(Press-News.org) RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The COVID-19 pandemic did not affect everyone equally. Communities of color, especially Latino (including undocumented persons), Black, and Native American groups, as well as people with low incomes, experienced much higher rates of infection, hospitalization, and death.
Research has shown that several key factors worsened health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crowded housing, dense neighborhoods, and location played a major role in how the virus spread. Systemic racism, discrimination, and unstable jobs made some communities even more at risk.
A new report, published in Health Expectations, highlights how the Share, Trust, Organize, Partner COVID-19 California Alliance, known as STOP COVID-19 CA, helped address these challenges. Formed in 2020 as part of the federal pandemic response, the network brought together 11 universities, including the University of California, Riverside, and more than 75 community organizations across 14 counties. Together, they focused on reaching communities most affected by COVID-19 and improving access to reliable information, testing, and vaccination, while laying the foundation for long-term health equity.
“Our evaluation looks at how a state-wide network helped strengthen partnerships between communities and researchers so they could work together to tackle health inequalities in underserved communities during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ann Cheney, senior author of the report and a professor of social medicine, population, and public health in the UC Riverside School of Medicine. “What made this network different was its community-first approach. Local organizations and grassroots leaders didn’t just participate; they led.”
From shaping research questions to collecting data and writing reports, community partners contributed at every step, helping ensure that the work stayed grounded in real-life community needs and socio-cultural and economic contexts, rather than being driven by academic theory alone.
Between August 2020 and December 2021, STOP COVID-19 CA surveyed more than 11,000 Californians, conducted dozens of focus groups, participated in clinical trials, and organized hundreds of events — from town halls to vaccination clinics. Community health workers, known as promotoras, helped design and deliver health information in ways that resonated with local culture and language.
Cheney explained that in 2024 the network used a participatory and community-based evaluation method called Ripple Effects Mapping to better understand the network’s impact. The method showed that the network not only improved COVID-19 response efforts, but also strengthened relationships between community and academic partners, improved communication, and built lasting skills for future collaboration.
“Our report also points to bigger lessons,” Cheney said. “While the network made significant progress, participants noted the need for broader changes, especially in how universities work with community groups and how funding is shared. Ultimately, STOP COVID-19 CA showed that when communities are respected as leaders and equal partners, the results are more effective and more lasting.”
The report found the network helped communities not only respond to an emergency but also begin to reshape public health responses to better serve those most impacted by inequality. According to the report, STOP COVID-19 CA remains a model for how researchers and communities can work together to advance health equity.
“By combining academic expertise with local knowledge and leadership, the network showed what is possible when collaboration is rooted in trust, respect, and shared purpose,” Cheney said. “Beyond helping with urgent needs like COVID-19 testing and vaccines, the network also laid the groundwork for lasting changes to support ongoing community involvement in health equity research. It stands as a model for how diverse communities — across cultures, languages, and regions — can come together with researchers to tackle health disparities.”
Cheney’s coauthors on the report are academic partners at UCR and UC San Diego, as well as community partners at Conchita Servicios de la Comunidad in Mecca, California, and Global Action Research Center in San Diego.
The research was supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
The title of the paper, led by first author Evelyn Vázquez who was formerly at UCR, is “Ripple Effects Mapping: Evaluating Multilevel Perspectives and Impacts of a State-Wide Community Academic Partnership Network on COVID-19 Health Disparities.”
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
California partnership aided COVID-19 response and health equity, report finds
STOP COVID-19 CA showed how researchers and communities can work together to tackle health disparities
2025-10-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
University of Oklahoma secures $19.9 million for revolutionary radar technology
2025-10-03
NORMAN, Okla. – Researchers at the University of Oklahoma’s Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) continue to lead the way in radar innovation. A $19.9 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 program will fund the development of two groundbreaking KaRVIR systems (Dual-Doppler 3D Mobile Ka-band Rapid-Scanning Volume Imaging Radars for Earth System Science). These state-of-the-art radars will provide unique capabilities to close critical observational gaps in the atmospheric ...
Study finds restoring order to dividing cancer cells may prevent metastasis
2025-10-03
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most aggressive and hardest forms of breast cancer to treat, but a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine suggests a surprising way to stop it from spreading. Researchers have discovered that an enzyme called EZH2 drives TNBC cells to divide abnormally, which enables them to relocate to distant organs. The preclinical study also found drugs that block EZH2 could restore order to dividing cells and thwart the spread of TNBC cells.
“Metastasis is the main reason patients with triple negative breast cancer face poor survival odds,” said senior author Dr. Vivek Mittal, Ford-Isom Research Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and ...
High-accuracy tumor detection with label-free microscopy and neural networks
2025-10-03
Pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (PNENs) are a rare form of cancer that affects hormone-producing cells in the pancreas. Although uncommon, their incidence has been rising steadily over the past few decades. Treatment options include chemotherapy and targeted therapies, but surgery remains the only chance for a cure. However, surgical decisions often depend on pathology results that can take hours or even days, delaying treatment and increasing the risk of incomplete tumor removal.
Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a new imaging method that could help surgeons identify cancerous tissue more quickly and accurately. The technique, called multiphoton microscopy ...
Wayne State research reveals fetuses exposed to Zika virus have long-term immune challenges
2025-10-03
DETROIT — A Wayne State University study published in the Oct. 3, 2025, issue of Nature Communications revealed that Zika virus exposure during pregnancy causes long-term, sex-specific changes to a baby’s immune system, particularly affecting the frontline immune cells that fight infection.
The study, “Prenatal exposure to Zika virus shapes offspring neutrophil function in a sex-specific manner,” was led by Dr. Jiahui Ding, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in Wayne State’s School of Medicine.
“We discovered that when a pregnant mother is infected with Zika virus, the resulting inflammatory ...
Researchers deconstruct chikungunya outbreaks to improve prediction and vaccine development
2025-10-03
The symptoms come on quickly — acute fever, followed by debilitating joint pain that can last for months. Though rarely fatal, the chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne illness, can be particularly severe for high-risk individuals, including newborns and older adults.
While the virus is common in tropical and subtropical regions, including Asia, Africa and South America, public health officials have been tracking reported infections in Europe and, in September, a confirmed case in Long Island, New York.
Outbreaks ...
Study finds one-year change on CT scans linked to future outcomes in fibrotic lung disease
2025-10-03
DENVER (Oct 1, 2025) Researchers at National Jewish Health have shown that subtle increases in lung scarring, detected by an artificial intelligence-based tool on CT scans taken one year apart, are associated with disease progression and survival in patients with fibrotic interstitial lung disease. The findings, recently published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, suggest that computer-based image analysis may provide an earlier, more objective way to identify patients at highest risk for worsening disease.
“We ...
Discovery of a novel intracellular trafficking pathway in plant cells
2025-10-03
Just like in yeast and animal cells, vacuoles in plants are responsible for breaking down unwanted cellular components. At the same time, vacuoles in seeds also serve the opposite role -storing large amounts of proteins that provide energy during germination. These storage proteins, accumulated in the vacuoles of seeds such as beans and wheat, are not only vital for plant growth but also represent an important agricultural resource closely tied to our daily diet.
Until now, it was entirely unknown whether proteins could be transported from the vacuole to other organelles. In a study now published ...
New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis
2025-10-03
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For people living near volcanoes, danger goes well beyond lava flows and clouds of ash. Some explosive eruptions can lead to dramatic collapses of the sides of a volcano, like those at Mount St. Helens, Washington, and Anak Krakatau, Indonesia. The latter triggered tsunamis blamed for most deaths from its historic eruptions in 1883.
But the science and exact triggers behind such catastrophes remain largely unknown. To help scientists forecast collapse of volcano sides, also known as flanks or ...
Molecular coating cleans up noisy quantum light
2025-10-03
Quantum technologies demand perfection: one photon at a time, every time, all with the same energy. Even tiny deviations in the number or energy of photons can derail devices, threatening the performance of quantum computers that someday could make up a quantum internet.
While this level of precision is difficult to achieve, Northwestern University engineers have developed a novel strategy that makes quantum light sources, which dispense single photons, more consistent, precise and reliable.
In a new study, the team coated an atomically thin semiconductor (tungsten diselenide) with a sheetlike organic molecule called PTCDA. The coating transformed ...
From Parkinson's to rare diseases, discovered a key switch for cellular health
2025-10-03
A key switch for cellular energy balance has been discovered in cells: it could potentially become the target of new therapies for diseases ranging from Parkinson's to rare disorders caused by defects in the cell's powerhouses, the mitochondria. The switch is called phosphatase B55 (PP2A-B55alpha) and regulates the balance of mitochondria. Experts from Università Cattolica, Rome campus, and Roma Tre Universty have observed that, by reducing its activity, it’s possible to attenuate the motor symptoms of Parkinson's in a preclinical model of the disease.
This is ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
California partnership aided COVID-19 response and health equity, report finds
University of Oklahoma secures $19.9 million for revolutionary radar technology
Study finds restoring order to dividing cancer cells may prevent metastasis
High-accuracy tumor detection with label-free microscopy and neural networks
Wayne State research reveals fetuses exposed to Zika virus have long-term immune challenges
Researchers deconstruct chikungunya outbreaks to improve prediction and vaccine development
Study finds one-year change on CT scans linked to future outcomes in fibrotic lung disease
Discovery of a novel intracellular trafficking pathway in plant cells
New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis
Molecular coating cleans up noisy quantum light
From Parkinson's to rare diseases, discovered a key switch for cellular health
Tiny sugars in the brain disrupt emotional circuits, fueling depression
Mini-organs reveal how the cervix defends itself
Africa, climate, and food: How to feed a continent without increasing its carbon footprint
Researchers demonstrates substrate design principles for scalable superconducting quantum materials
How better software choices could cut US health care costs
Concussion history in NCAA athletes yields mixed health outcomes
Counting plastic reveals hidden waste and sparks action
Warming oceans may pose a serious threat to American lobsters
Deaths from drug-induced unintentional injury rise across the US
In car crashes with pedestrians, age and zip code may predict extent of traumatic injuries
AI optimizes evacuation, diagnosis, and treatment of wounded soldiers in Ukraine
Mastectomy linked to worsened sexual health, body image after surgery
Drop in credit score after cancer diagnosis linked to increased mortality, study shows
Use of weight loss drugs before bariatric surgery has soared in recent years, study finds
EMS call times in rural areas take at least 20 minutes longer than national average
Rectal bleeding in young adults linked to 8.5 times higher risk of colorectal cancer
Hospital closures disproportionately affect socioeconomically disadvantaged communities
Global disparities in premature mortality
Keck Medicine of USC expands world-class care in Pasadena
[Press-News.org] California partnership aided COVID-19 response and health equity, report findsSTOP COVID-19 CA showed how researchers and communities can work together to tackle health disparities