Approved Minutes of April 23, 2025

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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH April 23, 2025 • Ms. Rojas provided an overview of the Photovoice process and results. She shared that, in partnership with community partners, the team developed questions around why access to healthcare is a problem. The three Photovoice discussion sessions focused on how housing and job opportunities serve as barriers to accessing healthcare and the differences in care provided inside incarceration vs. outside. Ms. Rojas underscored that the community partners focused on issues related to social determinants of health more so than issues with the healthcare system itself. • The results included three main themes: 1. Support Inside vs. Struggle Outside; 2. All for One and One for All; 3. Employment Opportunities. These are explained in more detail below. o Support Inside vs. Struggle Outside focused on the need for support around system navigation and advocacy outside of the carceral setting, as care within incarceration is structured and standardized, whereas outside the system is bureaucratic, complicated, and confusing, with the ability to access it often dependent on the individual's support system. Ms. Rojas commented that much of the standardized healthcare within the carceral setting comes from a need for control of the incarcerated individuals and not from a place of genuine care. o All for One and One for All centers the idea that community support is mutually beneficial, and that failing to support one member of a community can be harmful to other members of the community. Community partners showed a desire to give back to their community and support others who have been through what they have. o Employment Opportunities underscored that there are not a lot of opportunities for employment for individuals with a history of incarceration, and that finding employment opportunities often depends not on what you know, but who you know. Community partners emphasized a desire to give back to others around employment opportunities, for example by starting their own business that is friendly to hiring formerly incarcerated individuals or through starting a bridge housing program with fewer restrictions than existing bridge housing programs. • Ms. Rojas emphasized the importance of hearing from community members, because they know what they need, of making sure that the things that they consider to be their healthcare needs are met, and of ensuring that those who are making decisions are considering what the community members say that they need. • Dr. Jonnal asked about integrating more local stories and Photovoice evidence with the broader existing data to provide better support for the existing data and improve the likelihood of receiving funding for programs. Ms. Beliveau shared that the student team initially did some research into the literature and found that it was largely not aligned with what is heard when working with the actual populations. Ms. Beliveau asserted that it is important to hear directly from the impacted individuals, as often things are only considered valid if they've been documented. She shared that earlier that day she had been considering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how individuals who are worried about where they are going to sleep are not likely to be thinking about longer-term things like diabetes care. Dr. Royce added that she feels it's important to center people's stories and that focusing too much on the quantitative data could distract from the importance of these stories. • Dr. Royce asked for more information about the process of data collection, to which Mr. Qui shared that their original presentation for their class was 45 minutes long, and there was not time to go into the level of detail that they would have preferred. The students said that they would share a copy of their original presentation with the board. S:\Managers Working Files\BOH\Agendas &Abstracts\2025 Agenda and Abstracts/ April Page 5