Field Placement: LA Health Action
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Yolanda Vera
Student Name: Mienah Sharif
Year: 2008

This summer I worked at LA Health Action (LAHA) which is a non-profit funded by Community Partners and is a project of the California Endowment.  LAHA is located downtown at the California Endowment.  LAHA staff consists of three full time employees who work directly from the office and a team of consultants who visit the office every three months.  My preceptors were Yolanda, the Director and Mike, the Executive Director.  Yolanda served as a lawyer for low-income communities for over twenty years and Mike is a recent UCLA graduate from the School of Public Policy.  There is a lot for a MPH student to gain from the diverse skill sets the staff at LAHA has to offer. 

LAHA’s main goal is to improve the health of and safety net for low-income residents of Los Angeles County.  LAHA uses a dual strategy to achieve its goal which includes building strategic alliances and policy advocacy.  I served as the summer graduate student intern.  As an intern at LAHA I worked on several different projects at once and therefore was exposed to an array of issues and initiatives to address them concerning the indigent in LA County.  Examples of issues I worked on included the California budget, school based health centers, diversifying the healthcare workforce and analyzing County allocation of funds towards different health departments.  I corresponded with various County departments of health and submitted formal data requests.  I was then responsible for analyzing the data and presenting my findings in memos for the staff.  Some of my duties included drafting letters to legislatures, researching best practices for various projects, attending meetings and creating visuals which were then submitted to the press.   LAHA heads the LA Health Collaborative which is a network of over 70 public and private organizations dedicated towards improving access to and qualify of health care services in LA County communities.

Interns at LA Health Action benefit from the exposure to a multitude of organizations that convene at the California Endowment’s office as well as the variety of issues the organization itself is involved in.  Interns can also learn a great deal about the “behind the scenes” process of laws that have a significant impact on public health programs.  Interns at LA Health Action are given an invaluable opportunity to learn about programs and then create their own memos and visuals to present to the staff based on their analysis. At LAHA, interns are given an optimal opportunity to develop their own ideas and analysis of projects as the staff introduces a health issue or concept and then expect students to show initiative and provide examples of how they would address the problem.  Therefore, it is important that the students do not rely on being provided detailed directions on a daily basis.  This helped me gain more confidence in my ability to apply theories and concepts I learned from classes to “real world” issues.

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