Reducing Disparities & Barriers

Research to Improve Quality of Care & Reduce Disparities and Barriers to Accessing Care

Several new grants were awarded to faculty affiliated with CHOIR, with the specific aim of improving the quality of care delivered to pediatric patients, reduce disparities, and reduce barriers to accessing care. The following provides a brief description of each newly funded project.

Dr. Alex Chen is the Co-Investigator for a new NIH-funded grant that seeks to develop a rigorously designed quality of care assessment tool that can be used to examine the degree to which hospitals are adhering to recommended standards of care for pediatric respiratory illness and to determine the feasibility and validity of using administrative data to make these assessments.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold received a Clinical Research Academic Career Development Award through The Saban Research Institute to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology to explore how functional activity in the brain relates to observed attenuation effects during an experimental pain paradigm. Dr. Gold is also a Co-Investigator for an NIH-funded grant that seeks to validate a child acute stress measure in both English and Spanish.
Dr. Julie Wolfson received a CTSI pilot and feasibility grant with which to conduct research intended to improve the quality of care delivered to patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) in Los Angeles, particularly adolescent patients who will soon transition from pediatric to adult healthcare providers. As a starting point, Dr. Wolfson will identify opportunities to improve access to care in Los Angeles, a large, dense, urban area that presents particular barriers to accessing care
Dr. Shirley Huang received a Junior Faculty Career Development Award from the Department of Pediatrics that will support her efforts to address the growing public health crisis of obesity among children living in Los Angeles. The overarching goal of this research is to examine existing dance curriculum, and use community-participatory research to inform the development of new dance curricula that are developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant for elementary school-aged children in Los Angeles.
Dr. Joyce Javier received a Clinical Research Academic Career Development Award through The Saban Research Institute to examine health and healthcare disparities among children and adolescents in immigrant families, with a particular focus on Filipino and other Asian sub-ethnic groups. The specific aims of the research are to 1) describe the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, diabetes, mental health conditions in immigrant children by sub-ethnic group; 2) determine the effects of social factors on physical and mental health outcomes in immigrant children by ethnic subgroup; and 3) determine whether immigrant children experience differences in quality of care, after controlling for various social factors.
Ellen Iverson is the Co-Investigator for two newly funded NIH grants. The first is an RO1 collaborative study with colleagues in critical care from Washington University Barnes-Jewish Hospital. This study will use focus groups and in-depth interviews with surrogate decision makers for incapacitated adult patients in critical care to examine surrogates’ challenges in making complex decisions related to treatment and care, and how knowledge, attitudes, culture, language and the critical care experience affect ethical considerations related to the collection of genetic data for use in research from adults in critical care. The second study is an RO3 study led by Dr. Jeffrey Upperman, from CHLA’s Department of Pediatric Surgery. This study will collect qualitative data from providers and parents of PICU patients to examine the nature of communication between providers and parents of pediatric patients in critical care, and the ethical issues related to the application of genetic testing for treatment of critically ill children.