CHER works to address health equity during COVID-19 pandemic

When COVID-19 reached Arizona in early March, CHER and SHERC faculty and staff reached out into their community partners to see how they could assist.

Enlisting the help of faculty and administrative staff, the team worked nights and weekends to submit a half dozen proposals, totaling more than $6.6 million, now under review, for the southwest Indigenous nations, people facing substance abuse issues and underserved populations.

Regents’ Professor Julie Baldwin, director of CHER, Ricky Camplain, assistant professor for CHER and the Department of Health Sciences, Samantha Sabo, associate professor for CHER and the Department of Health Sciences, Nicolette Teufel-Shone, associate director of CHER and a professor in the Department of Health Sciences, Heather Williamson, assistant professor for CHER and the Department of Occupational Therapy, and Amanda Hunter, CHER postdoctoral scholar, gave up summer vacations and free time to quickly submit the proposals.

Other NAU proposal collaborators include Joe Mihaljevic, Carly Camplain, Eck Doerry, Carmenlita Chief, Anna Schwartz, Crystal Hepp, Robert Trotter, Jani Ingram, Brettania O’Connor, Meghan Warren, Emery Eaves, Monica Lininger, Manley Begay, Darold Joseph, Alisse Joseph, Karen Jarratt-Snider, Juliette Roddy, Marianne Nielsen, Angelina Castagano, Chesleigh Keene.

Highlights

• A Flinn Foundation award for approximately $80,000 to support model prototyping in the Flagstaff area led by Baldwin, Sabo, Camplain, Mihaljevic,  and senior program coordinator Carly Camplain. (For more information, see the Flinn Foundation news story)
• Since March, Sabo, Ricky Camplain, Mihaljevic, Warren, and O’Connor, and  15 CHER staff and students have invested more than 1,000 hours to assist Coconino County with COVID-19 surveillance, testing and contact tracing efforts. (see the NAU News story).
  Staff includes senior program coordinator Alexandra Samarron, program coordinators Dulce Jimenez and Louisa O’Meara, and Jamie Wilson.  Contact tracing doctoral, masters and undergraduate students:  Melinda Smith, Chassity Begay, Ciara Heath, Michele Lee, Kelly Perez, Angelica Sanchez, Janet Yellowhair, Barbara Heerkens, Tessa McAninch, Omar Gomez, Yvonne Garber
• A four-part Infectious Disease Epidemiology Bootcamp with Ricky Camplain, Warren and O’Connor
• Co-development and co-teaching of Meaning Making in a Pandemic, a new interdisciplinary summer course that focused on COVID-19 and other past pandemics. Ira Allen, O’Connor, Summer Sydeman, Lindsay Wilson, and Joseph Guzman.

Work with community partners

• Teufel-Shone and Hunter worked with the Havasupai Tribe to develop a successful application for CDC COVID-19 related funds
• Ricky Camplain, Sabo and Teufel-Shone worked with the Hualapai Tribe on developing a contact tracing plan and proposal for COVID-19 related funding
• Ricky Camplain and Teufel-Shone collaborated with Dine College and the Missing and Murdered Dine Relatives Coalition on a proposal to the Administration of Native Americans to support awareness education and data base development for Navajo Nation to track trafficked and missing persons