According to the Centers for Disease Control and the American Psychological Association, there has been a significant increase in stress, depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Racial and economic disparities in access to mental healthcare services existed prior to the pandemic, and have most likely worsened with 10 million Americans facing unemployment and approximately 2 million losing their health insurance. And while the most recent COVID Relief Bill as well as the CARES Act provided significant funding for community mental health services, these do not directly addresses the racial and ethnic disparities in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

This presentation will focus on policies that have supported mental healthcare access during COVID-19 as well as continued gaps. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for telehealth mental health services, which has allowed for the continuation of mental health services from the safety of a patient’s home. However, telehealth services require access to broadband internet as well as a smartphone, tablet or laptop that can support video calls. This disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable, particularly low-income, homeless or rural individuals, that may have limited access to technology.

Further, federal legislation has not provided specific funding to increase access to mental health services for populations most impacted by COVID, namely communities of color. Policies that expand accessible and culturally relevant mental healthcare services within the community are important macro level interventions to improve health equity more broadly.

Case investigation and contact tracing are vital components of disease control during pandemics. In response to Covid19 pandemic CommUnityCare- a Federally Qualified Health Center- built a contact tracing team through sponsorship from Central Health- the healthcare district of Travis County. CommUnityCare was testing up to ~ 3000 patients per week with a positivity rate of up to 41%. Bilingual and culturally representative members of the local Austin community joined the team, to provide meaningful education about COVID-19 in the most affected communities. About 60 % of CommUnityCare’s patients are Latinx, and bore the highest positivity rates; the team faced challenges around a lack of trust in institutions, a stigma surrounding COVID-19 within this community that made contact tracing difficult. In order to increase its impact and provide maximum benefit to the community, the team pivoted to providing social services linkages to our cases, connecting them back to healthcare system, helping them navigate school, public health and CDC guidance, and providing advice when it came to employers. It was not only about providing guidance and resources, cases found it helpful and reassuring to have someone to speak to during the uncertainty of the pandemic. They were able to have their questions answered, vent about their anxieties to someone who listened actively and without judgement.

Through this program we learned once again the importance of leveraging talent within the community being served and how the health system has become a critical place to connect those in need with social and human services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread worldwide, affecting everyone, young and old, of all lifestyles, and especially people in a vulnerable or compromised population. Prisoners in correctional facilities are especially vulnerable due to limited opportunities to social distance, maintain good hand hygiene, and receive medical care. Limited information can be found on COVID-19 in correctional facilities due to its rapid occurrence and lack of studies conducted within correctional facilities. Few studies were completed between the months of April and September of 2020 to summarize the COVID-19 outbreak in correctional facilities in the United States. Utilizing a cross sectional qualitative design, this study aimed to address the following questions: “What is the quality of response in correctional facilities in the state of Utah in relation to COVID-19 and the care of inmates who are at risk of contracting, have contracted, or have recovered from COVID-19?” The aims of the study include: (1) evaluating COVID-19 prevention protocols for correctional facilities including inmates, staff, and volunteers, (2) evaluating the treatment and control protocols for inmates who are exposed and/or diagnosed with COVID-19, and (3) evaluating any relevant precautions emplaced for high-risk inmates. Data was collected through conducting structured interviews with law enforcement officials through prompts from a questionnaire. No prisoners were interviewed for ethical reasons. Answers to the questionnaire prompts were transcribed verbatim which were then used to identify themes that would be used to answer the research question.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, racism against Asians has been detected. The need for intervention for racism is evident. Three Intergenerational group works by the Korean community members have brought social cohesion and social support among the community members to fight against COVID-19 related racism while promoting mask wearing public health measures. The Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia (KAAGP) and Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation (PJMF) in Pennsylvania identified the needs for these group works at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and transferred their intervention programs beyond other Asian communities, including Chinese and Indian communities. The sustainability of these group works beyond the pandemic depends on the policymakers' attention to culturally nuanced service delivery through competent bicultural and bilingual social workers who understand these programs' future impacts on the individual community and the larger community. So far, the Asian communities, including the Korean community, have seen a lack of bicultural and bilingual workers in the health and social service fields. To meet culturally sensitive health and social service delivery, especially in mental health fields, the promotion of these workers is essential.

This study is based on the work of a Youth Advisory Board (YAB) piloted by a team of researchers from the Boston University School of Social Work and the Boston Medical Center (BMC) Family Medicine Department. The aim of the YAB is to uplift the experiences of BMC patients, and to make recommendations to improve health equity.

Five of eight YAB members utilized Photovoice, a form of visual ethnography, to explore how youth of color (YOC) conceptualize health. Youth captured images responding to the following prompt: “what does health or healthiness mean to you and/or your community?” They analyzed these images using the SHOWed method (What do you See here?; What’s really Happening?; How does this relate to Our lives? (and work); Why does this problem, concern, or strength Exist?; What can we Do about it?). During this process, YOC critically examined their images in order to capture the larger group narrative.

Overall, youth identified COVID-19 as “a revealing force that highlights systemic inequities, driving individuals and communities to both cultivate their resilience and take healthcare into their own hands in response to government or policy level failures”.

Findings highlight the importance of listening to YOC to impact health policy, particularly in regards to accessibility and health and risk communication. Further research on the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color should examine potential long-term changes in youths’ health behaviors, as well as adopt a strength-based orientation to build upon communities’ existing health strategies while increasing their access to resources.

To contain the disease and minimize its massive impact, clinical research aimed at finding new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat COVID-19 has become a top priority. Effective and efficient participant recruitment reaching all segments of the community is challenging particularly in a global pandemic. An online recruitment platform informed by the philosophy of cultural humility offer a potential solution to the problem of slow or difficult recruitment.

Methods: Interdisciplinary planning began in March of 2020, and the registry launched in July of 2020. The main mechanisms used for recruitment to the registry include electronic medical records data, flyers and post-cards distributed at COVID testing sites, and through social media and digital advertising campaigns. Design of communications, registry and online platforms were informed by a cultural humility framework and user-centered approach. Communication design concepts were reviewed by a community advisory board. The website was designed for ease of use in finding COVID-19 information that simple to use and easy to understand.

Results: As of February 24th, 2021, over 12,000 participants are currently participating in the registry. Approximately 18.8% have tested positive for COVID-19, 64.3% are female, and 21.4% are health care workers. Eleven study teams have utilized the registry as a recruitment tool, and nearly 4,500 matches have been made between study teams and interested volunteers.

Conclusions: Effective and efficient research recruitment strategies are more important now than ever due to the pandemic. Pilot efforts have been successful in generating community engagement in COVID-19 research and matching participants with studies.

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the outcomes, the cost, and the cost-effectiveness of a non-formal education program with an additional psychosocial component. The short-term outcome measure was an increase in educational attainment, a crucial step for youth empowerment. The program analysed was the Alternative Learning System (ALS) offered by the Balay Rehabiliation Centre in Bagong Silang, an urban slum in Manila, which targeted out of school youth.

Methods: The cost-effectiveness analysis of ALS compared to a ‘do nothing approach’ was performed from the perspective of the service provider. The study sample comprised 239 learners who were enrolled in the ALS during 2015-2018. For the ‘do nothing’ comparator, a counterfactual scenario was hypothesised. The average cost of the intervention per enrolled learner, and the incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) for passing the Accreditation and Evaluation (A&E) exam at elementary or secondary level, were calculated.

Results: The ALS intervention studied resulted in 41% (n=97) of the learners passing the examination over a period of four years (from 2015 – 2018). The estimated total cost of the intervention was $371,110, corresponding to $1,550 per enrolled learner. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for a pass in the exam was found to be $3,830. Compared to other, international, alternative learning interventions, the ALS intervention as used in Bagong Silang was found to be more cost-effective.

Conclusion: From the service provider perspective, the ALS for out-of-school young people was found to be a valuable investment to benefit poor young people living in slums in Manila.

Background: While child maltreatment experiences can have a lifelong negative impact. While there is evidence demonstrating the importance of social in overcoming childhood adversity, there is limited research to assess the key factors that contribute to positive functioning among maltreated youth. Study aims included: (1) Exploring perceptions of past and current functioning; and (2) Uncovering external resources participants used to achieve positive functioning among individuals with child-welfare-documented maltreatment.

Methods: Drawing from participants enrolled in an ongoing longitudinal study of the effects of maltreatment, 20 young adults with maltreatment histories were engaged in a semi-structured interview (April-June 2019). Thematic analysis approach was undertaken for the generation of codes and themes (4 coders). Procedures were (1) initial reading to familiarize, (2) initial codes independently generated and discussed, (3) codebook created, (4) coders reconvened to discuss/resolve differences in coding, (5) themes identified.

Results: The sample was 70% female, 38% Black and 31% Hispanic, 87% employed, 39% living with a partner; participant mean ACE score of 4.43 (SD 2.14). Study themes included support, barriers, and meaning making of maltreatment experiences. Sub-themes in the support domain included (1) family of origin (primarily grandparents and/or siblings), (2) role of foster parents, (3) school-based adults, and (4) community (faith-based and/or child-welfare system).

Conclusion: Our findings offer a preliminary effort to understand the ole of individual and systems supports in promoting positive functioning in young adults with a history of child-welfare involvement. Study themes highlight the importance of building formal supports for maltreated youth to promote positive wellbeing.

The allostatic and weathering impact of structural racism has its roots in slavery and tends to manifest across the lifespan. African American descendants of slavery experience these deleterious effects as contemporary racialized health inequity (Geronimus et al., 2005; Alexander, 2010; Van Dyke et al., 2020). The racial health gap persist in terms of poor birth outcomes (Lu et al., 2010), higher rates of chronic disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005), and lower life expectancy for African Americans compared to their European counterparts (Bassett & Galea, 2020). Yearby (2020) argues that racial disparities in health cost the U.S. approximately $175 billion in premature death and $135 billion in loss of productivity. Because the allostatic impact and weathering effects of structural racism manifest in contemporary health inequity, reparations presents an approach worth exploring to redress health disparities in African American communities. The racial health gap is likely to persist into the future without concerted effort to level the playing field. However, the deleterious effects of structural racism on the physical and mental health is frequently omitted in the expanding reparation movement. Therefore, the presenters will discuss the historical context of reparations, H.R. 40, and the feasibility of this approach to address racialized health disparities. It is imperative that health professionals, including social workers, possess awareness and knowledge of reparations to advocate for this perspective as an approach to redress health inequalities