Multicultural Health Institute

Prevention - distribution of PPE, administering tests and health screenings to stem the
spread of COVID-19; for those with medically-complex conditions, self-monitoring
devices are available (e.g., thermometers, pulse oximeters, incentive spirometers, BP
cuffs). Assisting in exposure tracking enables Safekeepers to contact more elusive
persons so they can be tested.
 

Education - multilingual and culturally-competent messaging in printed, visual and
audio materials to disseminate information regarding safe practices (e.g.,
mask-wearing, hand-washing, distancing), self-isolating and quarantining,
leaving/returning home as well as availability of local resources (e.g., PPE, food
distribution, testing sites, housing, exposure tracking); and development of CME-level
cultural competence/implicit bias institutional training with potential future partnership
with ABC for CVD component.
 

Advocacy - ever mindful of the social determinants that put minorities and the
marginalized at a disadvantage, e.g., linguistic and cultural barriers to effective health
care and social services, MHI-CC works to eliminate or reduce factors through
accompaniment, culturally appropriate interpretation, and multilingual translation.
Research - engaging and enlisting high school and college students in conducting
community-based assessments of conditions and needs as well as tracking data
collection and analysis for COVID-19, such as the maintenance of the Resilient
American Communities (RAC) local area dashboard, and development and deployment
of creative apps to disseminate and collect information to facilitate prevalence, contact
tracing and containment strategies,
www.resiliencesystem.org/dashboards/sarasota-county .
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Linkage-to-Care - training and expanding the ranks of the Safekeepers to guide
vulnerable persons to social and mental health services and helping to support them to
navigate through the healthcare system.

Sustainable Solutions - tracking measurable results and developing self-sustaining
community-oriented solutions to problems in the healthcare system as well as to
pervasive issues within social institutions that contribute to the social determinants of
racial, ethnic, and cultural disparities.