The UC Riverside School of Medicine has been awarded $250,000 through the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The funds will support a two-year project titled “Latinx and Indigenous Mexican Communities Partnering for Improved Mental Health.” 

Ann Cheney, an associate professor of social medicine, population, and public health, will lead the project. 

“Our initiative will address the urgent mental health needs of Latinx and Indigenous Mexican communities, particularly those impacted by the trauma of migration,” Cheney said. “Many of these individuals seek better economic opportunities but face significant challenges that include trauma related to migration, loss of identity, and discrimination in their host communities. With this PCORI Engagement Award, we are committed to fostering a collaborative environment that prioritizes patient-centered care and promotes mental health equity.”

Of the more than 46 million immigrants residing in the United States, 37% hail from Mexico or Central America. Indigenous Latin Americans experience compounded vulnerabilities, often leading to high rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. The project will engage the largest concentrated Indigenous Latin American community, the Purépecha, in Inland Southern California. Many speak their indigenous dialect with limited English and Spanish proficiency. 

Cheney, along with María Pozar of Conchita Servicios de la Comunidad, will co-lead a trilingual (English, Purépecha, Spanish) collaborative team comprising psychiatry residents in the UCR School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, other community partners from Conchita Servicios de la Comunidad, and clinical partners from Insight Family Counseling and Wellness Services Inc. 

The team’s key activities will include:

• Formation of a Community Advisory Board to guide engagement activities, comprising community health workers (CHWs), mental health professionals, and community members.
• Training CHWs/promotores to conduct focus group research, ensuring that community voices are heard and understood.
• Development of activities, including workshops on migration and trauma, informal mental health talks, and training sessions on patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (patient-centered CER).

“In the long term, this project will empower patient leaders, enhance the capacity of healthcare stakeholders, and foster collaborative research efforts that address the unique mental health needs of Latinx and Indigenous Latin American communities,” Cheney said. “We will actively engage community members across multiple states, including California, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Florida. By partnering with local organizations such as churches and food banks, we will ensure that the voices of patients and healthcare stakeholders inform our future research directions.”

PCORI is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress in 2010 to fund comparative clinical effectiveness research that will provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence needed to make better-informed health and health care decisions.