Innovations in University and Community Partnerships

An Overview

The College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) prepares the next generation of workforce in a variety of clinical health professions, multiple areas within the business and government sectors, and in health, social, and safety services. With being home to nearly 9,300 student majors studying in over 70 diverse degree and certificate programs offered throughout 11 distinct departments and schools, CHHS is among the largest of the six academic colleges comprising this University.

During the 2016-2017 academic year, CHHS began exploring ways in which faculty may have interest in working more closely together with our community partners to better optimize talent, time, and resources and to realize greater impact on our students and the communities we serve. We began exploring new ways to partner by conceptualizing an event in which our very large and very diverse CHHS faculty would have an opportunity to convene and intellectually engage with one another and with our community partners. The intellectual engagement with one another and with our community partners took on the form of a roundtable discussion event – Optimizing Collective Impact: Innovations in University and Community Partnerships.

Four areas emerged from this roundtable discussion:

  • Aging - The rapid “aging” of our population touches almost every sector of science and society essential to successful human and community functioning, including healthcare, public health, behavioral health, recreation and leisure, finance, government and policy, public planning, engineering, media and communications, among others. The full rountable brief on Aging was written by Dr. Tara Gruenewald, Associate Professor of Gerontology. 

    Dr. Iveris L. Martinez
    Archstone Foundation Endowed Chair, Gerontology
    Director, Center for Successful Aging
    Email: Iveris.Martinez@csulb.edu

  • Homelessness - One area of great emphasis for participants was the lack of availability of affordable, accessible housing for people experiencing homelessness in Long Beach. The full rountable brief on Homelessness was written by Dr. Rashida Crutchfield.

    Dr. Rashida Crutchfield
    Assistant Professor
    School of Social Work
    Email: rashida.crutchfield@csulb.edu

  • Health Disparities - This term can be defined in a variety of ways. Health disparities can be described in terms of care and status, whereas healthcare disparities refers to differences in access to or the availability of facilities and services. Health status disparities refers to the variation in rates of disease occurrence and disabilities between socioeconomic and/or geographically defined population groups. The full rountable brief on Health Disparities was written by Laura D’Anna, DrPH, Annalyn Valdez-Dadia, DrPH, Sheena Cruz, MPH, Lyka Trinidad, MPH(c), from the Center for Health Equity Research

    Dr. Laura Hoyt D’Anna
    Assistant professor in the Department of Health Science
    Director of the Ӱ Center for Health Equity Research 
    Email: Laura.DAnna@csulb.edu

  • Clinical Care and Prevention - Addressing Access to Clinical and Preventive Services in Long Beach, Ӱthrough Campus Community Partnerships. The full roundtable brief was written by Dr. Rachel Blaine, Associate Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics. 

    Dr. Lei Sun, CCC-SLP
    Speech Language Pathology
    Email: lei.sun@csulb.edu

Read the entire Executive Summary to learn more about the process and who was involved in this intellectual engagement event.