Alana M.W. LeBrón, PhD, MS

Associate Professor

University of California, Irvine

Department of Health, Society, and Behavior, Program in Public Health

Department of Chicano/Latino Studies, School of Social Sciences

Presentation Title

Community-Academic Partnership Approaches towards Environmental Justice and Health Equity

Abstract

This presentation will draw on social justice and community-based participatory research frameworks and provide an overview of community-academic partnership approach focused on environmental justice and health equity. The presentation will describe collaborative research efforts as part of the ¡Plo-NO! Santa Ana! Lead-Free Santa Ana! project centered on understanding and addressing exposure to lead and other heavy metals and implications for health inequities and will share findings, lessons learned, and next steps to inform policy and programmatic interventions to promote environmental justice and health equity.

Alana M.W. LeBrón, Ph.D., M.S., is an Associate Professor of Public Health and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, her M.S. in Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and her A.B. in Gender and Women’s Studies from Bowdoin College. She completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.

Dr. LeBrón applies a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to the study of how structural and social drivers of health shape racial/ethnic inequities in chronic conditions. Specifically, her research examines how policy, systems, and environmental factors shape health inequities and studies interventions designed to remedy unequal systems and mitigate health inequities. Dr. LeBrón examines the effects of racism, immigration-related structural barriers and stressors, environmental and climate injustices, and health care inequities on the health of predominantly Latina/o, immigrant, and low-income communities.