Force for Good
“…The still surging COVID-19 crisis has disproportionately affected marginalized communities nearly anywhere you look. That disparity is marked in northern Santa Barbara County, where a vast majority of positive cases have been recorded among its populations of Indigenous migrants and undocumented residents.
The Latinx and Indigenous Migrant COVID-19 Response Task Force —conceived by Dr. Van Do-Reynoso, director of the Santa Barbara County Department of Public Health, and helmed by physician Melissa Smith, director of health equity initiatives at UC Santa Barbara — is working to help these individuals by focusing on their experiences, health education and equitable treatment in the face of the pandemic…”