During the COVID-19 pandemic, mass unemployment and loss of income have contributed to rapid increases in food insecurity in the US. Latino households, in particular, have faced multiple health, social, and economic vulnerabilities. The Nutrition Policy Institute welcomed UC Merced's Denise D. Payán, PhD, MPP, assistant professor of public health in the Department of Public Health, to speak on this topic during a virtual NPI Brown Bag event on Thursday, December 3, 2020. Her talk was titled "Structural barriers influencing food insecurity, malnutrition, and health among Latinos in the San Joaquin Valley during COVID-19". Dr. Payan's presentation reported preliminary findings from two COVID-19 related studies examining: 1) the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on Latino immigrants in rural communities, and 2) changes to food delivery in emergency food outlets during the pandemic. Policy and programmatic recommendations were also shared. Payan is the principal investigator of the Community Health & Innovative Policy (CHIP) Lab at UC Merced and is Deputy Director of the state-wide research translation center known as the California Initiative for Health Equity & Action (Cal-IHEA). Payan's Brown Bag presentation slide deck is available online and her presentation recording is available for viewing online. Learn more about the NPI Brown Bags here.
Dec 3, 2020
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