As a Master of Public Policy student, I have spent extensive hours researching social policy by reading reports, writing literature reviews, participating in client-based team projects, and doing regression analysis using STATA. Despite the importance of this work, I have truly valued the opportunity that I have been given to go outside the walls of Sanford and truly connect with the community by working with the Duke Global Health Institute. After completing work on the Bass Connections: NC Latino Health Project last year, I have once again had the opportunity to partner with El Centro Hispano, this time working with the LGBT population on the Juntos project. Given my previous work and interest in immigration policy, having these opportunities to connect with the local Latino population and collaborate with community partners to address health disparities has been a great way to build on my policy knowledge and bridge the divide between the Duke community and that of Durham.
This semester, it has been great getting to know a new team, reconnecting with El Centro, and embarking on a new project to work with Durham’s Latino community. We have already covered a lot of ground—from workshops to develop interview skills, to developing our own literature reviews and interview guide, to engaging in crucial dialogue about identity, power, and other topics that will be fundamental to approaching a collaboration that will provide a learning experience for the student researchers but, more importantly, have a true impact on the Latino LGBT population with whom we are working. My experience on last year’s project gave me a variety of insights about the many barriers that Durham’s Latino population faces, and the preliminary research as well as our visit to El Centro has continued to reinforce the need to work together to begin to mitigate some of these barriers.
My policy work as well as the previous project with DGHI has also demonstrated the power of qualitative research as a way to gather findings that can truly inform a change. In that vein, I look forward to learning more about the local Latino population through the interviews that we conduct, and I hope that we can find a way to harness that crucial information in order to promote opportunities to improve their outcomes. Since policy work can sometimes feel disconnected from the populations that those very policies seek to serve, I believe that establishing this connection with those who may be direct beneficiaries of a given intervention is crucial to effective policymaking. I am very excited to see how this interdisciplinary team works together to promote positive change, and to continue to develop strong community relationships between Duke and Durham.
