Meeting Community Needs

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This story is from the 2025 issue of Discoveries, a UC San Diego Health Sciences magazine.

UC San Diego is a catalyst for positive change through collaborative partnerships that create innovative solutions tailored to local needs, cultivate the next generation of health professionals and community advocates, and undertake groundbreaking research and initiatives that make a lasting community impact.

Community Health Workers

An interest in health led Breana Mason to leave a decade-long career as a child welfare caseworker. She enrolled in the Community Health Workers for Advancing Public Health Within Immigrant/Refugee and Native American Communities Program (CHWAP), a new academic-community partnership to train 200 individuals from refugee, immigrant and Native American populations living in San Diego County as community health workers.

“There is a need for individuals with culturally and linguistically competent skills to be engaged as community health workers within their own communities to bridge the gap between public health, health care and community needs,” said Wael Al-Delaimy, MD, PHD, professor at Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and CHWAP director.

The community health worker model has the potential to decrease health care costs and make it more accessible by focusing on prevention and early treatment, he said.

Mason was certified as a community health worker from UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies, which coordinates the coursework of CHWAP, and was employed based on this training by Neighborhood Healthcare.

To help people access the resources they need to live their healthiest lives, Mason coordinates translation services, billing, transportation to clinic appointments and schedules a mobile team to go to patients. Other days she may do welfare checks or hospital visits.

“The program is a great opportunity to obtain certification and work in health care and advocacy,” said Mason. “It allows us to address issues within our communities that are not being adequately addressed or are unfair.”

CHWAP is a collaboration with community partners, such as the San Diego Refugee Communities Coalition, Somali Family Services, Workforce Development and the County of San Diego.

“Together, we are creating a robust pathway connecting trained community health workers with opportunities for employment and growth. These partnerships ensure trainees are job-ready and supported by a community-driven network committed to reducing health disparities,” said Blanca Meléndrez, MA, executive director of the Center for Community Health at UC San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute and CHWAP co-director.

Displacement and Health

People who are forcibly displaced from their countries experience unique health disparities, including mental health trauma, interrupted health care access, disease epidemics and deterioration of chronic conditions, while living with the stress of looking for a new and safe home.

Influenced by her lived and global experience as a Doctors Without Borders physician, Tala Al-Rousan, MD, MPH, assistant professor at Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, established the Displacement and Health Research Center in 2021. The center aims to study displacement as a social determinant of health, advocate and engage in policymaking and train physicians, public health professionals, academics and social justice advocates.

“This is a first-of-its-kind lab at UC San Diego that is comprised of refugee, first-generation, immigrant and other underrepresented trainees, diversifying scientists in health research,” said Al-Rousan.

“Communities benefit from having students who are from the communities that we serve, helping us build trusting relationships. Students feel more supported when their experiences, which are their biggest assets, are celebrated and harnessed. Their passion is to give back to their communities by focusing on refugee health.”

In 2014, Rawnaq Behnam, MPH, arrived in San Diego as a refugee. Learning a new language  and being a first-generation high school and college student and the sole provider for her family made Behnam’s secondary and undergraduate education challenging. Joining the displacement lab while pursuing an MPH degree connected Behnam to people with similar backgrounds, making her graduate school experience more meaningful.

“The lab allowed me to implement my skills by designing a whole project, applying for funding and networking locally and internationally. I wish we had more resources to support additional students,” said Behnam.

Among the 50 students currently involved with the lab is Araz Majnoonian, a current student in the Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health, whose family has been displaced three times in the past four generations.

“Seeing how my parents’ experiences as refugees impacted their health led me into refugee health,” said Majnoonian. “It took a village to get me here. It’s important to help them in return by contributing to the wellness of my own community.”