BC大学的公共健康电子游戏正规平台得到了CDC的表彰

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named 电子游戏软件 senior 塞巴斯蒂安•科 as one of seven recipients of the 2023 Williams-Hutchins Health Equity Award, which recognizes outstanding projects by undergraduates in the CDC John R. 刘易斯夏季公共卫生学者项目.

科塔’s award-winning study compared the prices of four food staples at grocery stores and bodegas in Upper Manhattan to evaluate barriers to food access in the historically Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights, with the goal of preventing food-related chronic diseases like diabetes, 肥胖, 和高血压. He conducted it while enrolled in the Summer Public Health Scholars Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, 全国七个刘易斯学者项目之一.

“在纽约, 每个街区都有小酒馆, 但是超市并不普遍,科塔说。, 他是不列颠哥伦比亚省莫里西艺术与科学学院的学生. “I wanted to get a sense of where structural inequalities prevent people from accessing quality and affordable fresh food, 影响健康结果.”

Hispanic populations in the United States are at risk when it comes to food-related chronic diseases. 根据美国商务部2018年的数据.S. 少数族裔健康办公室，美国的西班牙裔成年人.S. are 70 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes and 1.肥胖的可能性要高出两倍. Access to healthy and nutritious food—and the time and money to buy and prepare it—is crucial to preventing these diseases.

“The most effective way to treat these diseases at scale is through prevention,” 科塔 explained. “为了确保病人能过上最健康的生活, we need to look at both the affordability and quality of the food near them.”

在哥伦比亚大学的暑期课程中, 科塔 completed a six-week internship at the School of Nursing’s Center for Community-Engaged Health Informatics and Data Science, located near the part of Washington Heights known as “Little Dominican Republic.在设计他的刘易斯学者项目时, 科塔 chose to focus on the prices of four staples of Dominican cooking: eggs, 牛奶, 食用油, 和蛋黄酱. He recorded the prices of these items at 38 bodegas and 40 supermarkets and compared the results using an independent samples t-test (a statistical test that is used to compare the means of two groups).

平均, 他发现, groceries were significantly pricier at bodegas than supermarkets, 哪些在更富裕的地区. These results are telling, but “just a starting point,科塔说。.

“任何人都可以强调差距, but we can’t just blame individual bodega owners and walk away,他说. “The important thing is thinking about the next steps to making people’s lives better.”

在科塔的演讲中, which he gave at the Lewis Scholars Summer Showcase and Expo in July, he focused on several possible directions that future research could take.

“We need to do more qualitative analysis to hear the stories of both community residents and the bodega owners,科塔说. “提供负担得起的杂货的障碍是什么, and how can we use what owners tell us to advocate for policy change? 社区成员需要什么, and can we respond by creating more food pantries or free cooking classes?”

他完全打算亲自采取这些后续步骤中的一些. 明年五月毕业后, he plans to attend a public health master’s program and medical school before returning to his hometown of Los Angeles to practice as a physician in the community where he grew up.

“In my career, I want to combine public health with my practice as a provider,他说. “If you’re working in a neighborhood that’s medically underserved or in a food desert, 您需要了解上下文，以提供有效的护理.”

科塔, 他是墨西哥裔美国人, grew up in southeast LA and is the first in his family to attend college. His interest in public health emerged from his own experiences seeing members of his community struggle with food insecurity and linguistic, 社会, and financial barriers that affected their health and access to care. 在高中时, 在县医院做志愿者的时候, he witnessed these disparities daily in one of the nation’s busiest emergency rooms.

“Patients would regularly wait 10 to 15 hours to be seen and then be unable to afford basic care or insulin,科塔回忆道. “Seeing that level of injustice, both in the hospital and in my community, was deeply frustrating. 我只是觉得这样不对.”

这种不公正的感觉激发了一项使命. Before he even enrolled at 电子游戏软件, 科塔 reached out to Professor of Biology Philip J. 兰德里根,M.D., director of the Global Public Health and the Common Good program, 关于电子游戏正规平台公共卫生的可能性. 当时, 不列颠哥伦比亚省没有这样的专业, but 科塔 worked with Landrigan to create an independent course of study and became one of the first students to enroll in the Global Public Health and the Common Good major this fall.

In addition to winning the CDC Williams-Hutchins Health Equity Award—named for the first African American man and woman to complete 30-year careers in the U.S. Public Health Service—科塔’s Washington Heights study also won first place in the pre-med category at the 2023 Latino Medical Student Association National Conference in September.

“拥有这些机会真的是一种福气,科塔谈到这第二项荣誉时说, 这是一个惊喜吗. “只有6%的美国人.S. 医生是拉丁美洲人, and it’s so important and inspiring to meet peers and mentors who can guide me and share their experiences with me.”