In 2017 we began to work intensively with allies and fellow researchers to support research that would contribute to overcoming systemic disparities that deprive low-income communities , especially those with concentrations of immigrants, of their fair share of federal and state funding as a result of being under-represented in decennial census and American Community Survey data. The research contributed significantly to improving understanding of census undercount resulting from low-visibility housing units being left out of Census Bureau address list. In 2019, a new threat to a fair and accurate census emerged with the Trump administration proposing a citizenship question be added to the census as part of efforts to exacerbate undercount of immigrants. We supported and participated in research to document the serious negative impact this would have on census quality. We have continued our engagement in efforts toward census accuracy through research on community undercount in Latino-majority counties.

Like researchers and advocates throughout the U.S. and the world, we became involved early in 2020 in efforts to ameliorates disparities in access to COVID-19 testing, vaccination, and treatment, focusing on farmworker and immigrant communities. We advocated early on for community-based contact-tracing, as well as equitable access to vaccination and, when effective treatment became available, for free access to effective but expensive treatment. Following up on earlier research and advocacy, we highlighted the ways in which crowded, and often substandard, farmworker housing contributed to COVID-19 transmission and stress.

We noted, also, the flawed public health policy approach to using Title 42 as a regulatory tool to summarily expel asylum-seeking migrants at the southern boarder and provide support to dedicated and effective non-profits providing legal assistance to migrants along the southern border.

We will seek to adjust our grantmaking in future years to respond to ongoing systemic injustice and the consequences of social determinants of health.