Dalmina Arias‘ scholarship focuses on achieving health equity through the provision of evidence-based and culturally responsive occupational therapy practice. She specializes in chronic disease self-management and has extensive knowledge and experience developing sustainable interventions that promote participation and healthy living among minoritized individuals.
Health Disparities and Social Justice SOPC
Focus on the inequities and challenges faced by marginalized populations
The Health Disparities and Social Justice Scholarship of Practice Collaborative focuses on the inequities and challenges faced by marginalized populations. Guided by the UIC Scholarship of Practice Model, this collaborative aims to advance knowledge, promote research and develop innovative strategies to reduce health disparities and promote social justice in collaboration with our communities.
The collaborative seeks to facilitate empowerment of individuals, groups and populations from underserved areas and enhance their access to evidence-informed occupational therapy services through interdisciplinary collaboration and guidance of social justice principles. By prioritizing the understanding of cultural contexts, socioeconomic factors and systemic barriers, we create meaningful and sustainable changes in occupational therapy practice that promote health equity and social justice for all.
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Enhancing health equity through culturally responsive occupational therapy practice
Learn more about Dalmina's scholarship
Developing occupation-based self-management interventions
Heidi Fischer works to enhance participation, inclusion and advocacy with people who have disabilities or chronic health conditions. Heidi and her team contributed to the development and implementation of occupation-based, self-management interventions in the rehabilitation setting. She also participated in the creation of novel collaborative and interdisciplinary self-management services for the UIC OT Faculty Practice.
Learn more about Heidi's scholarship
Improving health care justice for people with disabilities
Susan Magasi directs the Healthcare Justice for People with Disabilities Research Lab. She and members of her lab work closely with disability and cancer survivorship communities and inter-disciplinary colleagues to create innovative peer support and technology-enabled interventions aimed at breaking down barriers to health and social participation for people with disabilities.
Learn more about Susan's scholarship
Developing health services innovations for social justice
Mansha Mirza is the director of Partners of Refugees in Illinois Disability Employment. She works to enhance health and social services for low-income, underserved communities, with a special focus on immigrant and refugee newcomers. Her current research focuses on policy and programmatic innovations such as organizational capacity-building, language access trainings, and collaboration with community health workers and peer mentors.
Learn more about Mansha's scholarship
Addressing health disparities
Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar’s research focuses on understanding health disparities experienced by people from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds who have disabilities or chronic health conditions, as well as their families. Yolanda and her community partners are developing and validating culturally relevant community-level interventions to address organizational, environmental and systemic factors that promote health equity and well-being.
Learn more about Yolanda's scholarship
Student members
Student members are central to the collaborative. They work with faculty to design and conduct innovative capstone projects that are responsive to the needs of community partners.
| Class of 2025 students | Class of 2026 students |
|---|---|
| Dalia Al-Sheikh | Andrea Adap |
| Vanessa Atter | Lydia Delgado |
| Galila Dandridge | Bridget Egan |
| Yunshen Li | Nicholas Erizo |
| Madz Faith C. Linatoc | Yazmin Esparza |
| Janelly Macias-Martinez | Sara Gonzales |
| Tenzin Pema | Samra Haseeb |
| Jenny Pham | Jeremy Manlapaz |
| Luz Maria Rocha | Monica Moy |
| Isabella Rosas | Shahzeen Qureshi |
| Mariela Saenz | Kiara Rana |
| Julia Gabrielle Sim | Bana Sunbuli |
| Edward Vaquedano | Jazmin Villanueva |
| Maya Soto | |
| Kimberly Martinez |
SOPC in action
Fifteen second-year students belong to this SOPC and have been advancing the design of their capstone projects.
Project topics range from culturally tailoring resources and programming for racially and ethnically diverse client populations with disabilities and chronic conditions, to optimizing organizational environments and resources that attract a diverse workforce and promote access to inclusive practices and programming (e.g., sensory rooms, community gardens).
Each project is being designed in response to the needs of more than 10 clinic and community-based sites on campus or nearby. Jen Summers, our capstone coordinator, has structured how students engage faculty and peers within this SOPC to meaningfully shape project design for mutual benefit.
These are samples of project topics that are positively shaping this SOPC at UIC OT, a department steeped in the tradition of pursuing a ‘scholarship of practice’ model. We trust that its members will continue to benefit from seeing how these projects take shape to advance OT practice related to understanding and mitigating health disparities and promoting social justice.
Stay tuned to learn about these projects as they take more final form in the Fall.
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Questions?
Want to learn more about the Health Disparities and Social Justice SOPC? Curious how this collaborative fits in with your career and education goals?