Does your work require IRB approvals…right now? At a later stage? 

Our work does not require IRB approvals right now because our research does not involve human subjects yet. We are gathering data and information from secondary sources. At a later stage, our work will require IRB approval, when we interview communities of color in the Lehigh Valley. Our questions would have to be approved by the IRB. 

If Yes, articulate your detailed IRB strategy.

Our IRB strategy is to create a proposal that includes these 4 criteria which simultaneously preserves the nature of our study and protects the participants. The first criterion is informed consent. We will give information about our research to those we are interviewing and inform them of our purpose, to investigate the claim that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in the Lehigh Valley. We must answer their questions and allow them to decide whether to participate. The next criterion is confidentiality. It is important to keep the data that we receive from the subjects confidential to avoid unintentional or unauthorized release of private information. The next criterion is risk-benefit ratio. As a team, we must ensure that there will be minimal risk in relation to the anticipated benefits. We will consider all of these criteria when creating our questionnaire as well as our IRB proposal. Our IRB proposal will include our hypothesis, study background, design and methodology of the interview, details about the subject population, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and recruitment. Our IRB strategy will incorporate putting materials in English and Spanish, since there is a large Hispanic population in the Lehigh Valley.  

Develop an outline for your mid-semester presentations.

Who are you?

• Intros of ourselves
• Have pictures of us in slide 

What are you doing?

• Brief background/nature of our project
• Pictures instead of words on the slides
  • Purpose: To assess the claim that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in the Lehigh Valley and devise policy solutions to address major inequities
  • Spring 2021 goals:
    • Identify the main issues affecting POC’s in the Lehigh Valley during the pandemic (health/employment/housing) 
    • Identify community organizations/leaders to interview in the future
    • Obtain reports from LVHN & St. Luke’s to study patient demographics/COVID cases/vaccine distribution
    • Establish contacts within various small and large community healthcare providers 

Where will you be doing it?

• Lehigh valley, pictures of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton

Why are you doing it? (what problem are you solving/addressing?)

• Research on why this is important
• Statistics on the area and demographics 
• Pictures of maybe graphs or statistics of the research 
  • In general, people of color are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 at much lower rates across the U.S.
  • Distributing more vaccines to smaller healthcare providers may make people of color more likely to be willing to get the vaccine because patients tend to trust their primary care physician more
  • People of color are wearier of receiving the covid vaccine, which is also believed to have been developed rather quickly
  • Black, Latino, and Native Americans are 2x more likely to be infected, 3x more likely to be hospitalized, and 2x more likely to die from COVID-19 in comparison 
  • Communities of color have experienced an overwhelming amount of trauma throughout their history. Covid-19 the latest another phenomenon that is affecting their mental health
  • Incidents of violence against the Black community have underscored the pre-existing increased anxiety and depression within these in communities
  • AA households experienced greater job loss, more food and medicine insecurity, and higher indebtedness in the early months of COVID-19 compared to white or Latinx low-income households
  • Economic crises hit people of color harder and longer than others
  • Non-White Lehigh Valley residents are three times more likely to not graduate from high school compared to White residents — severely limiting their employment opportunity
  • Those living in crowded urban areas are likely also living near manufacturing and thus, are near harmful toxins and wastes, leaving them exposed to harmful physical and social environments and increased stressful events. 

How are you doing it?

• List of potential solutions that are actions associated with the solutions
  • Vaccine Distribution
    • Administering vaccines at cultural/community centers and churches accessible to low-income communities of color
    • Working with translators to address language barriers during vaccine registration
    • Dispel misconceptions about the vaccines by compiling all information in a manner that is accessible to low-income communities of color
    • Provide assistance to people who don’t have access to the internet to register for the vaccine
  • Working to address healthcare barriers
    • Focus on the insurance profiles of those with continued care and those without, and insurance requirements of diagnostic centers
    • Focus on telephone access, signage and interpreters, transportation to and from facilities, and proximity to POC neighborhoods
    • Develop assessments for the level of patient understanding, literacy level perform completion, and language concordance
    • Set up more testing and treatment for vulnerable communities

Credibility/validity – partners? funders? 

• People we want to connect with such as government officials and policymakers, healthcare personnel, educators, etc. 
• Research we have found from various sources 
• We do not seem to need much funding for this project right now, but we hopefully would work with potential partners listed above if funding is needed. 

What supporting evidence will you provide for each point?

• We have found research from journals and news articles, and databases. We also found local articles that pertain to the region we are conducting our project in. 
• In the future, we will have additional evidence once we solidify our relationships within the Lehigh Valley Health Network

How will you boost your credibility every step of the way?

• We will provide participants with background information and research that we have gathered to demonstrate our knowledge within this topic
• Clearly state what our problem is and what the potential solution is
• We will keep contact with our participants throughout the time we are working with them to establish trust between each other. 
  • We can create a relationship with them outside of the research
• When we present our work and research to our participants or others, we will speak confidently and professionally.
  • We will include a Works Cited section of our presentations to validate our research and credibility
• We will be prepared to answer questions and will be open to feedback