COVID-19 and Vulnerable Communities: Structural Inequality and the Pandemic

This webinar focuses on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities, including Pacific Islander and/or working class communities, examining the reasons for this vulnerability; the lack of attention on COVID’s effects on these communities; and some of the ways that these communities are organizing to track data on the pandemic and to protect their community members.

Corina Penaia, MPH, is a Community Engagement and Research Director for UCLA’s Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) Data Policy Lab. Corina Penaia has a MPH from CSU Fullerton and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management at UCLA. She co-founded UCLA’s Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Data Policy Lab, which tracks the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on underserved NHPI communities. Dr. Felix Aguilar is the Chief Medical Officer for the Chinatown Service Center’s (CSC) health. There he has witnessed first-hand the pandemic’s impact on the multi-racial, working class, migrant communities who live in Los Angeles downtown and Chinatown area. Dr. Aguilar will speak from his perspective as a community-based, social justice, health practitioner.