COMMUNITY BUILDING
Community is something that is important to me, and has influenced a lot of my work inside and outside of school.
One project I want to highlight is my research focusing on immigrant health in Los Angeles County. I developed a resource guide that local organizations and agencies can use to better bridge the gaps in health seen in immigrant populations. The research took three months, and disseminating the results took another three months. The purpose of this project was to develop a step-by-step approach to improving the overall health of Angeleno immigants.
WAYS TO DEVELOP COMMUNITY RESEARCH
What I've learned from my work experiences
IDENTIFYING COMMUNITY
The best way to start any project surrounding community is to identify who that community is. Such is the case with any industry; analyzing who your community of interest is, and what their needs are (health, financial, political, etc).
BUILDING TRUST
From there, you need to get the community of interest to trust you and your work. Especially when working with marginalized communities who have historically faced prejudice and inequity, this is particularly important.
RECOMMENDING SOLUTIONS
Once you have identified your community of interest and developed mutual trust, you are then able to offer recommendations and solutions to the issue at hand. This is where data and statistics is important, to further build credibility to your research.