The Center for Community Health is part of a San Diego County-wide team of community and academic researchers who won a $5 million grant from the American Heart Association to execute a research initiative that will engage people most impacted by health disparities by developing solutions to improve health and well-being.
This team will be led by Cheryl A.M. Anderson, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S., FAHA, a professor and dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science (HWSPH) with Eric Hekler, professor HWSPH, and Blanca Meléndrez, M.A., Executive Director of Altman Clinical Translational Research Institute Center for Community Health at UC San Diego as co-leads, and Aimee Zeitz-Gruber, executive director of community well-being at the YMCA of San Diego with Earl M. Felisme, Rocina Lizarraga, and Jonathan “Tana” Lepule as the Tri- Chairs for the San Diego Childhood Obesity Initiative Community Council as co-leads.
The theme of their work is “flipping paradigms”. This team will re-imagine and re-orient the ways in which resources, information and wisdom flow between communities, academia and other institutions. They will advance food justice – the belief that everyone should have access to healthy and sustainable food – in California’s San Diego County through three core programs: a community-led granting program that funds community priorities; an academic-led scientific methods program to support community-led grants; and a postdoctoral training program. The struggle of not eating enough nutritious high-quality food, coupled with concerns related to economics, environment, housing, education, safety, and discrimination can lead to poor health outcomes. The team’s vision is that everyone, everywhere will eat healthful diets and achieve cardiovascular health through research and collective action work that is community-driven, diverse, and inclusive.
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