Never Losing Sight of Our Nearest Neighbors and Their Needs

As an academic health system, Keck Medicine of USC is respected for our renowned physicians, cutting-edge research and highly specialized care we provide patients from across the country and around the world. I’m always proud to share updates about the remarkable accomplishments occurring at our organization to provide the best possible care to our patients.

Another set of activities I am equally proud of is the behind-the-scenes, but equally important work we are doing with and for our East Los Angeles neighbors. There is an African proverb that says a good deed makes a good neighbor. That’s an accurate way to describe how Keck Medicine thinks about our closest neighbors. 

Before the COVID-19 crisis, East Los Angeles was known as a food desert where the social, physical and economic environment was often at odds with health and well-being. The pandemic further deepened this suffering, especially food insecurity. Researchers from the University of Southern California documented that food insecurity in Los Angeles surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the worst stretches of the crisis, 26% of all households in Los Angeles and 39% of low-income households did not have enough money for food. Job loss and illness added to the hunger crisis, which was also made worse by the closing of food pantries and school food programs. More recently, annual inflation rates are clocking in at 8-9% in Los Angeles, where the cost of food and shelter is among the highest in the nation.

To combat these devastating conditions and ensure that our neighbors have access to fresh and nutritious meals, Keck Medicine of USC and the Keck School of Medicine of USC were among the first organizations in Los Angeles to identify food insecurity as a crisis during the pandemic and to meet weekly with local government officials to work on solutions.

Building upon our existing foundation of programs, Keck Medicine and other area hospitals joined with the Weingart East Los Angeles YMCA to feed roughly 1,300 families per week during peak periods of the pandemic, including home deliveries to seniors, meal kits and thousands of hot meals to the homeless. As the pandemic recedes, food insecurity is persisting. During 2022, the Y program expects to provide over two million pounds of food and groceries to low income and immigrant families in East Lost Angeles.

Keck Medicine’s partnership with the Y extends to gardening workshops and healthy lifestyle and nutrition classes in Spanish and English so that community members have the skills and resources they need to make healthy choices when it comes to eating and taking care of their physical health. Through a partner program, Vouchers for Veggies, and Keck Medicine’s Veggie Bucks, community members will start receiving support to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at neighborhood grocery stores this fall.

Keck Medicine’s support of a local farmer’s market, located in an area of our campus with high foot traffic, is also having a substantial impact on the availability of nutritional food choices. Our farmer’s market attracts members of the East LA community, USC students, Keck School of Medicine students and Keck Medicine physicians and staff who take advantage of the healthy and affordable food options that are available once per week. 

Addressing the food insecurity our neighbors face is a long-term commitment for Keck Medicine. People without access to affordable, healthy foods face an increased risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, which lead to lower life expectancy. That is simply unacceptable when we and other health systems and community partners have the resources to help.

While our programs are having positive impact as demonstrated by our community benefits survey, they are just a small part of what being a good neighbor means to Keck Medicine. We offer free AIDs testing, have an active street medicine program, serve as a voting location, support asylum seekers, fund art programs that remind people to get vaccinated, host a highly regarded symposium offering blood pressure education classes, work closely with young mothers to address the needs of our youngest neighbors and offer many other community-focused programs and services. 

The pandemic may seem to be in the rearview mirror for many of us, but we know it is having longer and more dramatic impacts on communities like East LA, now and going forward. As our neighbors’ needs grow and change, our organization will continue to seek for more and better ways to reach community members in culturally appropriate and impactful ways – because that’s what good neighbors do.