A hijab is a religious covering in Islam that women wear to show their devotion to God, and it is typically worn to cover their hair, neck, and chest. Muslim women who are healthcare workers often wear the hijab at work. While I was shadowing in a healthcare setting, I was instructed to remove my hijab due to it being “non-sterile”. This experience inspired me to learn more about wearing the hijab as a healthcare worker in a healthcare setting. My study explores barriers to wearing the hijab, specifically, dress code policies or other workplace issues that would contribute to denying Muslim women the right to wear the hijab. This study includes two questionnaires, the first for hijab-wearing healthcare workers to assess their experiences with wearing a hijab on the job.  The second survey is for healthcare workers to better understand their interpretation of the dress code policies. The goal of this project is to understand whether there is: 1) consistent interpretation of dress code policies within the healthcare setting, 2) whether dress code policies need to be revised to be more inclusive and 3) whether there are additional barriers to wearing the hijab. The hoped-for outcome is to create more inclusive spaces for current and future Muslim healthcare workers.

 People use online crowdfunding sites to raise money to afford their medical bills. We might commonly think this happens because of lack of government support but in fact, online crowdfunding sites lead to health inequality. One important concept of this research is that online discrimination is connected to offline. For instance, there are some places there is more segregation compared to other places, and online space has inequalities as well. Marginalized group of people tends to show poor funding performance so this study takes place to figure out who those marginalized people are and where they settle to observe if people unfairly treated is actually living in a place where there is more segregation.

Vulnerable immigration statuses in Latinx children in the US are often associated with poor health, development and social service access. This adversity can be mitigated by positive and responsive parenting that promotes resilience and supports the childhood stress of migration. In this study, we aimed to understand the parenting strengths, stressors and law needs of Latinx families in order to adapt a brief, responsive parenting behavioral skills intervention—Social, Emotional, and Academic Competence for Children and Parents (SEACAP) and pair it with immigration law and policy education and resources. We conducted 15 qualitative interviews, 30-60 minutes in length, with Latinx parents of young children with vulnerable immigration status. The interviews were conducted by a bilingual-bicultural member of the study team in Spanish. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and organized using Dedoose software; and reviewed by myself and additional research associates using thematic analysis coding methodology to segment and categorize important concepts within our dataset by generating codes. A codebook was created with the consensus of a coding team using Dedoose software. There have been a total of 15 qualitative interviews conducted, transcribed, coded and are currently in process of further thematic analysis. Preliminary major code themes that have been revealed include: Migration Strengths and Stressors, Stress Level Comparison, Push/ Pull factors and Health. The themes identified in the ongoing analyses will inform the adaptation of the SEACAP curriculum and the development of the law and policy education and resources to support Latinx families with vulnerable immigration status. Implemented through community partnered organizations, this program aims to provide parents with information about warm, consistent parenting and scaffolding to improve children’s development of self-regulation and positive social, emotional and academic outcomes. This program will also include legal advice and information related to immigration and education, offered by the North West Justice Project.

The coronavirus pandemic has had significant global effects since the beginning of 2020. To slow the progression of a pandemic it is critical that the public cooperates with and follows health guidelines. In the United States, public health officials’ recommendations have been heavily politicized and disputed, resulting in confusion and uncertainty. Furthermore, the United States has had varied policies and messaging both over time and in different jurisdictions, augmenting contention. Twitter has emerged as a viable resource to explore public sentiment related to the pandemic, such as anxiety and fear. Tweets can also be leveraged to gauge the general understanding of the population, and to assess the effectiveness of public policy and communication from public health officials. In our work, we seek to understand how the public discourse varies in different areas of the United States over time. We first collect tweets about Covid-19 over a four-month period from March through July, 2020 from users in the United States. Next, we use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised algorithm that automatically constructs topics that appear in documents based on word co-occurrences. Using LDA, we present a topic-model of ten themes around Covid-19 that encapsulate various types of discourse throughout the pandemic. Furthermore, we examine trends in topic frequencies over time in each state, identify common patterns shared by states, and discuss these implications. Themes of anxiety are common, although their prevalence increases in some states over time, and decrease in others. Finally, topics of social distancing and wearing masks vary widely in sentiment and in accordance with local policy.

In the United States, populations with chronic conditions and their families continue to experience a lack of access to quality healthcare despite ongoing advocacy efforts to combat health disparities and policies put into place to eliminate them. Healthcare interventions that are designed to achieve health equity fail because they do not address all of the factors and social determinants that influence health. To address this problem, I will investigate if access to care is associated with health outcome indicators such as quality of life, life expectancy, morbidity and mortality of individuals with chronic conditions from a state policy level and from a global perspective in Cuba. In particular policies for healthcare coverage such as private insurance, employer insurance, medicare, and medicaid. Ultimately, achieving health equity among people with chronic health conditions by working with health government agencies and suggesting policy changes that promote equal access to care. I will conduct a literature review on the lack of access to care in populations with chronic conditions and perform key informants' interviews. Interviews will consist of individuals from Cuba and locally in Washington State. In conducting the literature review and interviews I can anticipate that the results will be a higher expenditure (total cost and out of pocket cost) in healthcare from the United States but a decreased level of access to healthcare. Contrarily, in Cuba there will be a lower expenditure in healthcare but a higher level of access to healthcare.

Although there is a preponderance of research regarding community well-being, many projects solely focus on economic or health indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), median household income or health resources. While these are pertinent factors to determining well-being of a community, the Social Weather Project aims to broaden well-being measures. For this project, the University of Washington Research Team chose to not only analyze community resources and opportunities in their research, but also, human connections. The research team surmises this holistic viewpoint may produce more accurate assessments of community well-being, which it can hopefully utilize to create a standard measurement to provide communities with in the future. The UW Social Weather Team created a list of indicators to assess whether individuals feel connected to and supported by their communities by examining community-level institutions, leadership and social connections. The Research Team chose to focus on factors such as Social Connections, Civic Engagement, and Sense of Belonging. Within each of these domains, the Team constructed tangible indicators. In the fall, I focused on the indicator Social Connections and completed a data analysis and literature review, and wrote a 10-page research paper. During the winter Quarter, the Social Weather Team shifted into Phase 2 and focused on reaching out to community members who worked for nonprofits and government agencies. The UW research Team anticipated that involving community members would allow for a more accurate assessment. My role during this phase was to become IRB human subject certified, help create a survey, recruit community members to participate, and interview health-care workers. Starting in March, I began analyzing and coding responses to the survey while simultaneously continuing interviews and searching for large-scale recruitment opportunities. Implications of this study will hopefully reveal factors that determine community wellbeing, ultimately improving quality of life.
 

In addition to the impact of COVID, older adults face age-related changes (ARCs) affecting activities of daily living. How COVID affects ARCs, and the ways older adults engage with their aging has not been studied. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to understand the impact of COVID-19 on ARCs. I worked with a team of undergraduate, pre and post-doctoral students, and faculty. I assisted with developing questions for an interview guide to learn about ARCs and adaptations to mitigate these challenges. Participants completed online surveys on resiliency, social support, self-efficacy of managing daily activities, and loneliness. I conducted 1 mock interview, assisted with 3 interviews, and independently conducted 3 interviews over Zoom. During each interview I conducted, I shared my screen for participants to identify challenges on a pre-populated JamBoard, asked questions, and evaluated cognition. Our research team completed 30 interviews with 20 females and 10 males over the age of 65. I self-learned ATLAS-ti and have begun to analyze the qualitative data. Preliminary findings indicate that COVID has had a widespread impact on older adults' ability to adapt to current ARCs. Examples include: Men with urinary frequency issues reported difficulties finding open restrooms while out walking due to closures. Women who reported declines in stability and strength were discouraged with gym closures. Both genders reported increased hearing difficulties with the use of masks. One participant reported having a positive response with an increased likelihood to perform workouts over Zoom, which were not offered prior to the pandemic. The results of this study may provide better understanding of the impact of the pandemic on ARCs and provide guidance to better prepare individuals to maintain or create adaptations during a pandemic. Adaptive strategies used during the pandemic may continue to promote older adults’ health in the future.