The California Pre-Term Birth Initiative at UCSF is forging a new approach to community-based participatory research. Hear from Alexis Cobbins and and Shannell Williams on new research strategies they have implemented as they work to eliminate racial disparities in pre-term birth.

Further Reading:

• DataCenter: Research for Justice
• California Pre-Term Birth Initiative, UCSF, Developing a Research Strategy in Partnership with Communities Affected by Preterm Birth 

The term “school-to-prison pipeline” describes a phenomenon wherein children who should be getting an education instead end up trapped in the criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex due racial discrimination and the criminalization of learning differences, trauma, and behavioral issues. Imagine if we treated the challenges some children have in the classroom as health problems and health injustice challenges requiring health interventions instead of disciplinary measures. In this episode, we speak with two researchers who are a part of a new initiative to develop just such an approach.

Further Reading:

• ACLU, School-to-Prison Pipeline 
• Mary Ellen Flannery, The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Time to Shut it Down, National Education Association (January 5th, 2015). 
• Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, School-to-Prison-Pipeline
• Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New Press, 2010. 

The Britney Spears case has brought national attention to the conservatorship system in the United States. But in most ways, this case is exceptional and obscures the ways in which conservatorship affects older and disabled people, who are disproportionately people of color, women, people who are socially-isolated, and who are living in poverty. In this episode, we will talk to a physician working in San Francisco’s safety net health system about the challenges for physicians, lawyers, and others trying to advocate for this population.

Further Reading:

• ABA, Guardianship and Supported Decision Making 
• Christine Ritchie, Advancing Health Equity for People Who are Homebound, The Playbook (September 23, 2021).