 Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Anita Curian, assistant director at MetroHealth and a proud board member of the Bayer County Health Collaborative. It's almost, it's one year ago this week that the world learned about the first COVID-19 death in Wuhan, China. Little did we know then how much our lives would change. We've learned to mask consistently, practice social distancing and have virtual meetings like the one we are having today. And based on the data that we are documenting here in our community related to COVID-19 mortality and morbidity, COVID-19 related deaths is certainly going to be one of the leading causes of deaths here in San Antonio, far exceeding the deaths that we document on annual basis with flu. Historically, pandemics have disproportionately affected the underserved including those in low income and ethnic minorities. It has not been any different with this pandemic. Among many health inequities that have come to the forefront, the digital divide is one of those inequities that we have seen widened by this pandemic. As a majority minority city that recently acknowledged that racial discrimination and social injustice have indeed resulted in harmful impacts on our community's health, we have much work to do towards addressing the existing health disparities in our community. For public health, the approach we take to addressing health disparities or health inequities is rooted in data and research. So we especially value the community-based research projects that will be presented in the report that's being released today. What is interesting or important to well-intentioned public health practitioners like me may not be useful or helpful to persons on the front lines. So these community health projects help prioritize their concerns and help set equitable priorities. Last summer, the champions for health inequity in our community, the city's Community Health and Equity Committee, had strongly advocated to allocate a portion of our CARES funding that the city had received to COVID-19 research with the goal to better understand this pandemic's impact on locally occurring health disparities and provide evidence-based path to improve health equity for San Antonio's most vulnerable residents. So all the projects that are included in this report highlight all the efforts that we as a community have done coming collaboratively, working collaboratively together to ensure our community's network of knowledge and resources is not only rich but resilient when it comes to addressing health disparities in our community. So I want to congratulate and thank all the community research project grantees, the grant review committee, and the health collaborative. We at MetroHealth are extremely pleased to support this work that contributes to the growing knowledge base about COVID-19 and its impact on our community's health. We are also happy that after challenges in the past year, we've seen some light at the end of the tunnel as we are distributing, as COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed. People want to see fairness and transparency with regards to the vaccine administration process and MetroHealth is committed to meeting those expectations. We are currently providing vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines at a mass vaccination event site at Alamo Dome, and we will be gearing up to provide vaccines through a mobile unit to areas that have been hardest hit by this pandemic as vaccine supply improves. People talk about vaccine as being a step towards getting back to normal, that is true, but I want to talk today about going forward to the normal. The new normal that is different because it encompasses the lessons we've learned with regards to societal inequities and commit towards eliminating these inequities by working through policy changes, partnerships, and persistence. Because even after COVID, we will still all be in this together. I want to end here and I want to introduce the next speaker, Elizabeth Lutz, she's the Executive Director of the Health Collaborative. Thank you Dr. Kurian for those encouraging words and definitely thank you to MetroHealth for all of their continued work for their investment and their sacrifice that they've been doing over the course of the last year and ensuring that we continue to stay safe. As Dr. Kurian mentioned, these funds were awarded through CARES funding, but we really want to acknowledge and recognize the leadership of MetroHealth for ensuring that these dollars stayed invested in community. And so with that, we were able to award about $430,000 in community grants to the awardees that included the Children's Rehabilitation Institute, Telethon, USA, Community Information Now, or as we name them in Community See Now, Martina Street Women's Center, UT Health Reach Center, and the UTSA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. When you review the report and it is available on our website under the GrowHealthyFund.com, you will be able to review all of the information regarding these projects. While these projects were very, it was a short timeline for the grantees to be able to submit their proposals, all of them really ensured that the voice of community was reflected in the work that they were doing. Not only did they share this information publicly, but many of them used this grant cycle to initiate projects that would have life even after the granting funding cycle had ended. So we are very excited about being able to provide the report, but more so have an opportunity to continue the conversation even after we release this report. Institutions like the UTSA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Community Information Now, the Children's Rehabilitation Center, and more are ensuring that the surveys, the information that they have been able to collect over the last four months will be the foundation for projects that will continue, and then they will continue the collaboration with others around the community to ensure that those voices and those individuals that they are serving are met with resources that are being developed right now in this community. I will say that although we were only able to provide resources to these grantees, there are many other projects throughout the city that really developed and has been, again, through the strength and leadership of our city, of our city health department, of our county resources, and I think all of us as a whole, to ensure that we learn from some of these effects, but that the learning continues even after. As Dr. Karian said right now, we have made great strides, but we're in the process of ensuring that people are well informed about access to services, COVID education, COVID immunization education, and access points, registration and so forth. So please know that this information report, again, we're using it as a foundation to understand where we have opportunity, where we have opportunity to grow, and where we have opportunities to continue to collaborate. For our community, what this means is that we have a call to action. It means that we need more voices, we need more partners to come together. We need more of you that have been doing your own research projects to really ensure that you are creating a space to share that knowledge base and that together we can provide this information to our leaders to make the proper decision making and to ensure that we're putting policy and process in place that really gives light to the findings that you've provided. All of the funding that was allocated today, again, goes back to prioritizing of projects that address health disparities in San Antonio. They work to improve quality of life for the residents of San Antonio and beyond, and to highlight those populations that have been disproportionately affected by COVID, but the learning will continue. And it is definitely regrettable that it has taken a pandemic of this kind to really influence a lot of decision, but we are in a very fortunate place to be able to have leaders like MetroHealth and our county officials have a listening ear to the community and ensure that we're developing ideas and we're developing solutions so that we can properly begin a healing process for this community. I'm going to ask my colleague, Anel Trevino, who is one of the project leads. Jordan McElven was the second project lead for this initiative. Without them, I think that the project itself would have maybe not been possible. They were the backbone of a lot of the administrative pieces assisting all of the grantees with their projects and ensuring that they were being supportive. And that they had all of the resources available to them as their projects continued. So I want to recognize both Anel and Jordan for all of their hard work and their dedication to this project. Definitely want to acknowledge the leadership at MetroHealth that also allowed for us to be able to move through these projects and to support financially the researchers that provided these reports. So Anel, if you will please join me up and have these comments, we're going to go ahead and do a quick summary of the projects and we'll be doing these in Spanish. Buenos tardes, mi nombre es Anel Trevino. Mi nombre es Anel Trevino y yo les voy a contar un poquito sobre este proyecto. Estos proyectos de investigación comenzaron en septiembre del 2020 al inicio de la temporada de otoño. Durante el siguiente aumento que fue previsto para los casos de COVID aquí en San Antonio. Como nos explicaron ahorita les y la doctora curian este estos proyectos fueron antipisa anticipando que COVID 19 tendría efectos este combinados en los miembros de nuestra comunidad. Y pues que están viendo los que estaban estaban estudiando los que estarían viviendo las consecuencias adversas de los determinantes sociales de la salud salud. Los investigadores de estos proyectos y en este reporte tratan de esclarecer y en forza enfocar en experiencias y necesidades vividas en estas comunidades. Las cuales pueden haber sido desproporcionadamente afectadas por COVID 19 incluyendo niños con necesidades especiales personas indocumentadas y vecinos afectados por la pobreza. Estos fondos este para poder llevar este proyecto acabó vienen de el fondo de ayuda alivio y seguridad económica por el coronavirus también conocido como el CARES Act. El comité de salud y equidad de la ciudad de San Antonio abogó para que estos fondos fueran destinados para avanzar la investigación de COVID 19 en nuestra comunidad. Así que queremos pues agradecer y como ya se mencionó este estamos muy orgullosos de tener un grupo de líderes en nuestra ciudad que han abogado y apoyado para que nuestra ciudad reciba estos fondos. Pero para que estos proyectos se puedan llevar a cabo y podamos comprender un poco más a fondo como esta pandemia está afectando impactando a nuestra comunidad. También queremos agradecer al departamento de Metro Health con quienes hemos trabajado en colaboración de Health Collaborative para poder desarrollar administrar y manejar los fondos de este proyecto de investigación. Y como mencionaba les también este pues para poder apoyar a todos los a las personas que trabajaron en este proyecto de investigación. Los cinco participantes que estuvieron en este proyecto fueron Craig Teletón USA con el proyecto de alza la voz amplificando las voz las voces de las familias de niños con necesidades especiales. See now y su proyecto fue COVID 19 y dispara disparidades o desigualdades de salud. Martina Street Women's Center hizo su proyecto se tituló UndocuFund asistencia de emergencia UT Health Science Center at San Antonio Reach Center calidad de vida y necesidades percibidas de sobrevivientes de infección de COVID 19. UTSA Departamento de Ingeniería Civil y Ambiental Vigilancia Epidemiológica de COVID 19 de Aguas Reciduales en el Condado de Béjar. También queremos compartir con ustedes que the Health Collaborative estará publicando todas las actualizaciones y resultados de los proyectos que seguirán. De la manera en que sean comunicados con nosotros y se pueden encontrar en la página de www.growhealthyfund.com. Si van a nuestra página de Facebook o en esta página de growhealthyfund.com, allí pueden encontrar todos los links para que puedan ver el reporte. El reporte también va a estar allí para que lo puedan accesar. El reporte ahorita no está en español, pero si tienen cualquier pregunta o si quieren saber un poquito más, todos los reportes de las cinco organizaciones que participaron estarán allí. Gracias. Thank you, Enel. And in closing, we just want to remind everyone that again this is not just the final report, but it is a community report that we hope will continue to provide access and information and sharing of findings throughout our community. How to access the report, Enel, thank you for discussing that. You will be able to access the report at www.growhealthyfund.com. The report right now is not published in Spanish, but if there's anyone that has any specific questions that would like to speak to someone in our team, we are very happy to get you connected. You can call us directly at our main line at 210-481-2573, or you can also just email us at info at healthcollaborative.net, and we will be happy to provide you the access points and have you speak to one of the members of our leadership team to answer any specific questions you may have. We're also very happy to connect you to any of the researcher partners and get you all of the contact information that you might need, especially if you are interested in any collaboration opportunities with any one of the grantees or even with the health collaborative. So again, in closing, just want to say thank you so much for MetroHealth on behalf of the Health Collaborative, working as a non-profit organization for the past 23 years, and our mission being to improve the health of our community through collaborative means. I want to say that MetroHealth has been one of our strongest supporters and continues to be one of our major leaders, initiating collaborations and ensuring that we as a community are not siloed, but we are working together to create the fabric and network of care that is deserving of this community. So thank you again for taking the time to participate and to be a part of this release. We look forward to seeing you or hearing from you about the results of these grantees and their research projects.