In 2019, members of the Department of General Internal Medicine (DGIM) started a Food Pharmacy for general medicine patients with food insecurity. Pediatric residents from the General Pediatric Practice (GPP) at Mt. Zion heard about this program in 2021. They conducted a survey of 150 of their patients and found that nearly 20% rate had food insecurity. In March 2021, pediatric resident Priya Pathak contacted Dr. Moreno-John about starting a food program for their patients.

List of goals and specific aims: Climate policies and solutions are too often implemented in silos, without health and equity as key considerations, and without fully and equitably engaging communities whose lived experience needs to be incorporated into effective solutions. The proposed initiative will begin to address these issues by forging a model community-academic partnership to protect some of San Francisco’s communities that are most systemically vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change on health.

In the setting of a toxic mix of pressing healthcare needs, poverty, and structural social injustice, the UCSF/Mount Zion MERI Center for Education in Palliative Care and Glide Memorial Church will collaborate to build, operate, and sustain a Poetic Medicine program to promote health and dignity for members of the San Francisco Tenderloin Community, to foster resiliency for the Glide volunteers, congregants, and staff who serve this community, as well as to encourage interest and compassion among UCSF pre-professional learners for working with BIPOC communities.