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PRIME-LC students help Hispanic community during COVID-19 pandemic
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Helen Joyce speaking with Spanish media TV station 62, Estrella about the work PRIME-LC medical students are doing in the Hispanic community.
As COVID-19 continues to spread across the country, healthcare statistics have shown a wide disparity amongst the Hispanic and African American population when is comes to the virus. In New York, the Hispanic community has the highest death rate among COVID-19 cases, according to the New York Department of Health.
A group of UCI Medical students is working with the Hispanic community in Orange County to ensure the health info they receive about COVID-19 is correct, and that they are able to access the care they need.
Medical students Francisco Cerda, Sylvana Marquina and Helen Joyce from the UCI Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC), which trains physicians on how to meet the needs of under-resourced Latino communities, are translating COVID-19 patient education materials into Spanish for the UCI Family Health Centers in Santa Ana and Anaheim.
“PRIME-LC was built for this kind of crisis," said Dr. Charles Vega, director of the program."The efforts of our students will educate and empower some of the most vulnerable parts of our community, and thereby making it stronger and healthier as a whole.”
As the COVID-19 outbreak began to intensify, the UCI Family Health Centers had to quickly expand telemedicine services for its patients. The students developed Spanish-language materials on the latest guidelines for prevention and steps to access healthcare services for its patients.
The PRIME-LC students are also working with Radio Santa Ana to record COVID-19 public service announcements in Spanish and share additional helpful tips for the Latino community. They also recorded phone messages in Spanish for Madison Park Elementary School in Santa Ana to provide updates on COVID-19 for parents. At some point these messages may extend to all the Santa Ana unified schools in the district.
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