Congressional Research Recognition

Medgar Evers College’s Dubois Bunche Center for Public Policy (DBC), and the students who conducted research as part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s $1.4 billion Vital Brooklyn Initiative were honored with congressional commendations in late December.

The DBC received health research grants from Vital Brooklyn, which allowed students to conduct Participatory Action Research (PAR) in central Brooklyn. PAR is an approach to research in communities that emphasizes collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience and social history. The students who were recognized were involved in a third round of research (PAR3), which focused on uncovering the social determinants of healthcare in Borough Park, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Midwood, and Kensington. Previously, students involved in PAR 1 fielded and analyzed surveys and conducted interviews with residents in the East New York and Brownsville communities. PAR 2 research was conducted in Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and East Flatbush communities.

John Flateau, Ph.D., Interim Executive Director of the Dubois Bunche Center (DBC) for Public Policy is the principal investigator for this initiative. A group of 45 students, from Medgar Evers College and surrounding high schools, participated in the most recent research.