This story is part of a series celebrating the 2024 Founders Day Awards recipients, which are given to faculty, staff and learners for their exemplary service to the University and to our community at large.
Community is everything to Abby Cabrera, MPH.
“I think what’s really great about San Francisco is the city’s diversity and how the different communities come together,” said Cabrera, associate director, research and community engagement in the UCSF Center for Excellence in Primary Care. “What’s really important is showing that interracial solidarity. It’s actually being there. It’s showing up.”
As part of her day job, Cabrera manages multiple research studies and projects that aim to improve access to care, address the social determinants of health, expand existing community outreach efforts and more.
That experience came in handy during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she played a leading role in socializing UCSF’s findings that the challenges to accessing vaccinations failed to account for language, literacy, transportation and digital barriers – all part of the Stop COVID collaboration, a community-based participatory research project established in September 2020 in response to the global crisis.
Its parent project, STOP COVID-19 CA, included 11 academic and health care systems across California each in partnership with community stakeholders, focused on strengthening engagement of diverse communities to reduce COVID-19 inequities.
“I feel we were incredibly successful because we were able to reach into our communities and bring the resources in,” Cabrera said. “We were able to address cultural sensitivity of information that was being shared.”
For her work, Cabrera was recently awarded the 2024 Chancellor Award for Public Service, and she was hailed for her steadfast commitment in promoting health equity, public health and racial solidarity. “I wanted to make sure that I could give back to the communities that helped raise me,” she said of the work.
Now, Cabrera is on to a new passion project reflecting on the efforts of Stop COVID.
Led by local artist Josué Rojas, Cabrera helped create a mobile mural this past April.
The vibrant, colorful display honors iconic Bay Area landmarks and features hands from multiple races reaching in the same direction as an homage to the Stop COVID collaboration’s work in community healing and interracial solidarity.
“Instead of finding a location on the side of a building, we want to make it mobile so the mural can move around in different neighborhoods and within UCSF,” Cabrera said. “We want to spread the word of hope and inspiration and we can really show that this is a model of how we can continue to make an impact in the world.”
The mobile mural is currently displayed at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center’s Pride Hall.
People making a difference.
Every Founders Day, UCSF salutes the exemplary service of faculty, staff and learners to the University and the community at large.