Hillary Peregrina

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Hillary Nicole Peregrina, MA, MSW (she/her/hers) is an incoming first-year doctoral student committed to addressing mental health and psychosocial development among BIPOC children and adolescents, with a particular focus on the Filipino American community. She obtained her Master of Arts in Social Work (Clinical Concentration) from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She also previously earned a Master of Arts in Asian American Studies from San Francisco State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University.

Prior to entering the field of Social Work, she taught Ethnic Studies courses at San Francisco State University and San Francisco Unified School District through Pin@y Educational Partnerships. Her social work experience encompasses a range of youth development roles including administrative non-profit research and program evaluation and counseling services for children and adolescents ages 8-18.

Her central research questions focus on the impact of racial discrimination and critical racial consciousness on various developmental outcomes including mental health, ethnic/racial identity, family processes, civic engagement, and racial solidarity. She hopes to explore how contextual factors including discrimination, family and/or school ethnic-racial socialization, im/migration, diaspora, and other social determinants impact the formation of critical racial consciousness. She has previously published on various public health issues that impact Asian American communities across the lifespan including family social support, psychosocial wellness, type 2 diabetes and breast cancer among older Asian Americans, and civic engagement among emerging young adults. Her research interests are an interdisciplinary blend of her experience in Social Work and Ethnic Studies. Ultimately, she hopes to use various forms of research to advocate for health equity, translate findings into public policy recommendations, and inform clinical and community-based interventions.

Selected Publications: 

Peregrina, H. N., Maglalang, D. D., Hwang, J., & Yoo, G. J. (2023). A qualitative exploration of the continuum of help-seeking among Asian American breast cancer survivors. Social work in health care, 1–14. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00981389.2023.2244012 

Peregrina, H. N., Yoo, G. J., Villanueva, C., Bayog, M. L. G., Doan, T., & Bender, M. S. (2022). Tiwala, Gaining Trust to Recruit Filipino American Families: CARE-T2D Study. Ethnicity & disease, 32(1), 49–60. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.32.1.49

Maglalang, D. D., Peregrina, H. N., Yoo, G. J., & Le, M. N. (2021). Centering Ethnic Studies in Health Education: Lessons From Teaching an Asian American Community Health Course. Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education, 48(3), 371–375. https://doi.org/10.1177/10901981211009737  

Courtney Demko

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Dr. Demko’s research focuses on older adult health and well-being. She is particularly interested in Alzheimer’s caregiver burden. Her research involves using national survey data and focuses on the multidimensional factors associated with caregiver burden among young adult caregivers.

Dr. Demko’s research experience includes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and she has used her research skills on several grant-funded research projects at UCLA including grants from the Ford Foundation and Archstone Foundation. She was a member of the UCLA Latino Economic Security (LES) team, which researches the economic impact of a nation growing older and more diverse. Dr. Demko served as the Project Director for the team’s latest project which included conducting focus groups and surveying older white conservative adults to understand their attitudes and beliefs toward immigration and immigration policy. She has published her work in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Society on Aging.  She also gained administrative and managerial experience as the Assistant Director for the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA’s Department of Social Welfare and Public Policy.

Dr. Demko also has several years of teaching experience. She is currently teaching 211A Human Behavior in the Social Environment and 260A Research Capstone at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs Department of Social Welfare. She has also taught at California State University Los Angeles School of Social Work teaching both graduate and undergraduate Social Work Research Methods and Statistics courses.  Her teaching philosophy includes using a variety of teaching modalities to be inclusive of students’ varying learning styles.

She earned her B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College (2005), and an M.S.W (2013) and PhD (2021) from UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, Department of Social Welfare with a specialization in Gerontology.

Madonna Cadiz

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Madonna Cadiz, LCSW is a Doctoral Student in Social Welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Previously, she held research positions at the Program for Torture Victims and the Suicide Prevention Center at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. In these roles, she contributed to quantitative and qualitative research projects aimed at evaluating client functioning and program efficacy. Her research seeks to expand knowledge on the etiology of mental illness and emotional distress among underserved populations by identifying connections among individual, meso-level, and macro-level factors that may contribute to or exacerbate such conditions. Furthermore, her work aims to center community members’ voices to better understand their own definitions and conceptualizations of mental health diagnoses and symptoms, as well as to identify potentially meaningful interventions that may promote positive mental health among individuals and communities served by social workers.

Juan C. Jauregui

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Juan C. Jauregui, MSW, MPH is a 3rd year doctoral student in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His research is focused on understanding and preventing suicide among LGBTQ+ young people in low and middle-income countries using community-engaged approaches. Specifically, his work explores the social, economic, and environmental factors that impact the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ+ communities.

Juan recently co-led the launch of a national survey in Peru and the Philippines focused on LGBTQ+ youth mental health. Before entering the doctoral program at UCLA, Juan worked with the Resilience + Resistance Collective at the University of Michigan School of Public Health where he was involved in LGBTQ+ mental health projects in the U.S., Kenya, and Zambia. He also worked with the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program at Michigan Medicine where he focused on examining health inequities for LGB people with bipolar disorder. Juan’s previous professional experiences also include working as a Research Associate for the UCLA Adolescent Trials Network and as a Crisis Worker for a national suicide hotline.

Juan earned his BS in Psychobiology from UCLA in 2017 and Master of Social Work and Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan in 2021. Juan is a recipient of the NIH-funded LEAD Global Training Fellowship at Washington University St. Louis, as well as a recipient of the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.

Selected Publications:

Jadwin-Cakmak, L., Jauregui, J. C., McDowell, H., Davis, K., LaBoy, R., Johnson, G. L., Hosek, S., Harper, G. W. (2023) “They’re not feeling the love they need to feel”: HIV stigma and other intersecting stigmas among Black gay and bisexual men and transgender women in house and ball communities. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health. doi: 10.1080/19359705.2023.2200375

Lewis, K. A., Jadwin-Cakmak, L., Walimbwa, J., Ogunbajo, A., Jauregui, J. C., Onyango, D. P.,  Moore, D. M.,  Johnson, G. L., Odero, W., Harper, G. W. (2023). “You’ll Be Chased Away”: Sources, Experiences, and Effects of Violence and Stigma among Gay and Bisexual Men in Kenya. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 2825. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042825

Jauregui, J. C., Rucah, C., Crawford, J., Jadwin-Cakmak, L., Concehla, C., Onyango, D. P., Harper, G. W. Experiences of Violence and Mental Health Concerns among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults in Western Kenya. LGBT Health. 2021 Oct;8(7):494-501. doi: 10.1089/lgbt.2020.0495. Epub 2021 Aug 31. PMID: 34463158.

Chenglin Hong

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Chenglin Hong is a PhD Candidate in Social Welfare at UCLA. Trained as a social worker, Chenglin’s research focuses on addressing health inequities among sexual and gender minority and other LGBTQ+ populations. His work is centered primarily on the development and testing of interventions that aim to improve sexual health and mental health outcomes among gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM), with a particular focus on HIV and intimate partner violence (IPV) in the U.S. and globally. Chenglin’s work lies at the intersection of social work, public health, psychology, and data science, with the aim of developing interventions that disrupt violence, stigma, HIV, and other syndemic conditions among the SMM communities. He is particularly interested in examining the feasibility and acceptability and developing and testing eHealth, mHealth, and other technology-based interventions and data science approaches (e.g., machine Learning, natural language processing) to promote IPV help-seeking and HIV prevention services such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among SMM.

Chenglin’s mixed-method dissertation titled “Utilizing Machine Learning and Technology-Based Intervention for IPV and HIV Prevention among SMM” was funded by the American Psychological Association (APA) Science Directorate, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), the UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship program, and received honorable mention in the inaugural Grand Challenges for Social Work Doctoral Award.

Since he started the Ph.D. program, Chenglin has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and presented more than 40 abstracts at leading national and international conferences. As a global health researcher, he has established collaborations with researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Washington, Emory University, and collaborators in China, Ukraine, and Kenya. His current work also includes community engagements with providers and partners in community organizations such as the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Before UCLA, he received his Master of Social Work and Master of Public Health (MSW/MPH) from the University of Washington (Seattle).

Selected Publications: 

Hong, C., Flinn, R.E., Miyashita, A., John, S.A., Garth, G, & Holloway, I.W. (in press). Internalized homophobia and social well-being among Black sexual minority men with HIV: The mediating role of LGBT community connectedness and racial and sexual identity integration. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity

Hong, C. (2023). Mpox on Reddit: a Thematic Analysis of Online Posts on Mpox on a Social Media Platform among Key Populations. Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 10.1007/s11524-023-00773-4. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-023-00773-4

Hong, C. (2023). Characterizing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on HIV PrEP care: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature. AIDS and behavior, 27(7), 2089–2102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03941-w

Hong, C., Queiroz, A., & Hoskin, J. (2023). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, associated factors and coping strategies in people living with HIV: a scoping review. Journal of the International AIDS Society, 26(3), e26060. https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.26060

Hong, C., Hoskin, J., Berteau, L. K., Schamel, J. T., Wu, E. S. C., King, A. R., Randall, L. A., HBOU Study Team, Holloway, I. W., & Frew, P. M. (2023). Violence Victimization, Homelessness, and Severe Mental Illness Among People Who Use Opioids in Three U.S. Cities. Journal of interpersonal violence, 38(19-20), 11165–11185. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605231179720

Hong, C., Ochoa, A. M., Wilson, B. D. M., Wu, E. S. C., Thomas, D., & Holloway, I. W. (2023). The associations between HIV stigma and mental health symptoms, life satisfaction, and quality of life among Black sexual minority men with HIV. Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 32(6), 1693–1702. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03342-z

Hong, C., Holloway, I. W., Graham, S. M., Simoni, J. M., Yu, F., Xue, H., Zhang, D., & Mi, G. (2023). Awareness of and Willingness to Use On-Demand HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men Using a Gay Social Networking App in China. AIDS patient care and STDs, 37(4), 155–158. https://doi.org/10.1089/apc.2023.0004

Hong, C., Holloway, I. W., Bednarczyk, R., Javanbakht, M., Shoptaw, S., & Gorbach, P. M. (2023). High Vaccine Confidence Is Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men Who Use Substances. LGBT health, 10(6), 480–485. https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2022.0255

Hong, C. (2023) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in social work students: A scoping review and call for research and action, Social Work in Mental Health, 21:3, 329-346, DOI: 10.1080/15332985.2023.2196361

Hong, C., & Graff, N. R., Guthrie, B., Micheni, M., Chirro, O., Wahome, E., van der Elst, E., Sanders, E. J., Simoni, J. M., & Graham, S. M. (2023). The Effect of the Shikamana Peer-and-Provider Intervention on Depressive Symptoms, Alcohol Use, and Other Drug Use Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Kenya. AIDS and Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-023-04027-x

Hong, C., Yu, F., Xue, H., Zhang, D., & Mi, G. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in China: Difference by HIV status. Journal of psychiatric research, 154, 198–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.07.028

Hong, C., Huh, D., Schnall, R., Garofalo, R., Kuhns, L. M., Bruce, J., Batey, D. S., Radix, A., Belkind, U., Hidalgo, M. A., Hirshfield, S., & Pearson, C. R. (2023). Changes in high-risk sexual behavior, HIV and other STI testing, and PrEP use during the COVID-19 pandemic in a longitudinal cohort of adolescent men who have sex with men 13 to 18 years old in the United States. AIDS and Behavior, 27(4), 1133–1139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03850-y

Hong, C., Stephenson, R., Santos, G. M., Garner, A., Howell, S., & Holloway, I. (2022). Intimate Partner Violence Victimization During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among a Global Online Sample of Sexual Minority Men. Journal of family violence, 1–10. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00461-y

Hong, C., Yu, F., Xue, H., Zhang, D., & Mi, G. (2022). HIV Testing Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: Implications for Promoting HIV Self-Testing Among Key Populations. AIDS patient care and STDs, 36(12), 451–457. https://doi.org/10.1089/apc.2022.0184

Hong, C., Abrams, L. S., & Holloway, I. W. (2022). Technology-Based Interventions to Promote the HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Care Continuum: Protocol for a Systematic Review. JMIR research protocols, 11(3), e33045. https://doi.org/10.2196/33045

Hong, C., Feinstein, B. A., Holloway, I. W., Yu, F., Huang, W., Sullivan, P. S., Siegler, A. J., & Mi, G. (2022). Differences in Sexual Behaviors, HIV Testing, and Willingness to Use PrEP between Gay and Bisexual Men Who Have Sex with Men in China. International Journal of Sexual Health, 0(0), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2022.2053922

Hong, C., Puttkammer, N., Riabokon, S., Germanovich, M., Shost, A., Parrish, C., Shapoval, A., & Dumchev, K. (2022). Patient-Reported Treatment Satisfaction and Quality of Life Among People Living with HIV Following the Introduction of Dolutegravir-Based ART Regimens in Ukraine. AIDS and Behavior, 26(4), 1056–1073. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-021-03461-z

Hong, C., Horvath, K. J., Stephenson, R., Nelson, K. M., Petroll, A. E., Walsh, J. L., & John, S. A. (2022). PrEP Use and Persistence Among Young Sexual Minority Men 17-24 Years Old During the COVID-19 Pandemic. AIDS and Behavior, 26(3), 631–638. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-021-03423-5

Latoya Small

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Latoya Small’s scholarship is informed by her work in clinical social work practice and community-based research.

Her research focuses on health disparities, specifically, the intersection of mental health, treatment adherence, and HIV among women and children in the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her global research addresses the urgent need for theory-driven, empirically-informed, and sustainable psychosocial HIV treatment approaches for youth living with perinatally acquired HIV in South Africa.

In the U.S., Dr. Small examines how poverty-related stress, parenting, and mental health interact and relatedly impact adherence in HIV medical services among Black and Latina women in urban communities. An extension of her work includes mental health and discrimination facing transgender women of color.

Dr. Small takes a collaborative approach in her scholarship, recognizing that traditional intra-disciplinary boundaries can impede the development of effective and sustainable research interventions. Her work aims to produce accessible, evidence-informed interventions that bolster youth development and women’s health.

Hector Palencia

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Mr. Palencia graduated with a B.A. in English and a Religious Studies minor from the University of California, Irvine. From there he was granted an M.A. in Systematic Theology (with honors) from Berkley’s Graduate Theological Union, with another Masters degree in Social Welfare from U.C.L.A.

Mr. Palencia put his graduate studies to work in the field of gang resistance diversion programs, Mr. Palencia has numerous professional qualifications in addition he has presented on Social Welfare and Gangs, Criminalization of Homelessness, Working with Trauma in Youth, and Gang Round Table Discussions.

Mr. Palencia’s work history demonstrates a compassion borne out of his spiritual endeavors and a capacity for working with marginalized young offenders. He comes to UCLA from El Rancho unified where he served as one of the mental health liaison’s responsible for district wide mental health services which included coordinating services with partnering agencies as well as responding to crisis and working specifically with tier three students. For 4 years, he was with the East Whittier City School District overseeing middle school diversion programs, created partnerships with community agencies to meet needs not being addressed for students, and he became successful in writing numerous grants including the Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant initiative. In his career, he has worked in hospice and as drug and alcohol counselor handling at-risk youth case loads.

 

 

David Cohen

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David Cohen’s research looks at psychoactive drugs (prescribed, licit, and illicit) and their desirable and undesirable effects as socio-cultural phenomena “constructed” through language, policy, attitudes, and social interactions. He also documents treatment-induced harms (iatrogenesis), and pursues international comparative research on mental health trends, especially involving alternatives to coercion. Public and private institutions in the U.S., Canada, and France have funded him to conduct clinical-neuropsychological studies, qualitative investigations, and epidemiological surveys of patients, professionals, and the general population.

In his clinical work for over two decades, Cohen has developed person-centered methods to withdraw from psychiatric drugs and given workshops on this topic around the world. He designed and launched the CriticalThinkRx web-based Critical Curriculum on Psychotropic Medication for child welfare professionals in 2009, since taken by thousands of practitioners and updated in 2018. Tested in a 16-month longitudinal controlled study, CriticalThinkRx was shown to reduce psychiatric prescribing to children in foster care.

He has authored or co-authored over 120 articles and book chapters. His edited books include Challenging the Therapeutic State (1990), Médicalisation et contrôle social (1996), and Critical New Perspectives on ADHD (2006). His co-authored books include Guide critique des médicaments de l’âme (1995), Your Drug May Be Your Problem (1999/2007), and Mad Science (2013)

Cohen previously taught at Université de Montréal and Florida International University. In Montreal, he directed the Health & Prevention Social Research Group, and at FIU, he was PhD Program Director and Interim Director of the School of Social Work. He held the Fulbright-Tocqueville Chair to France in 2012.

Cohen has received awards for his publications, research, teaching, mentoring, and advocacy. His views have been published in leading newspapers and other popular media.

Selected recent publications

Discontinuing Psychiatric Medications from Participants in Randomized Controlled Trials: A systematic Review (2019)

Incidences of Involuntary Psychiatric Detentions in 25 U.S. States (2020)

Withdrawal Effects Confounding: Another Sign of Needed Paradigm Shift in Psychopharmacology Research (2020)

Mark S. Kaplan

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Mark S. Kaplan, Dr.P.H., is a professor of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and is a faculty affiliate at the California Center for Population Research. He received his doctorate in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds master’s degrees in social work and public health with postdoctoral training in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California. His research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and private foundations, has focused on using population-wide data to understand suicide risk factors among veterans, seniors, and other vulnerable populations. His other research interests include the social determinants of health and factors associated with thriving in older adulthood.
Dr. Kaplan is the recipient of a Distinguished Investigator Award from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. He has contributed to state and federal suicide prevention initiatives. Dr. Kaplan testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging at its hearing on veterans’ health and was a member of the Expert Panel on the VA Blue Ribbon Work Group on Suicide Prevention in the Veteran Population. Notably, he serves as a scientific advisor to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention branch.
Dr. Kaplan recently served as principal investigator on two National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded projects: “Acute alcohol use and suicide” and “Economic contraction and alcohol-associated suicides: A multi-level analysis.” He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, many published in high-impact journals. He co-edited the recent special issue of Health and Social Work on gun violence. Dr. Kaplan, a four-time Fulbright awardee, recently received an award from the Fulbright Specialist Program to help faculty at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid maximize the global impact of their research.

Selected Publications

Kaplan, M.S., Mueller-Williams, A.C., Goldman-Mellor, S., & Sakai-Bizmark, R. (2022). Changing Trends in Suicide Mortality and Firearm Involvement Among Black Young Adults in the United States, 1999-2019. Archives of Suicide Research, 1-6.

Fowler, K.A., Kaplan, M.S., Stone, D., Zhou, H., Stevens, M., & Simon, T. (2022). Suicide among males across the lifespan: An analysis of differences by known mental health status. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.106/j.amepre.2022.02.021

Kaplan, M.S., McFarland, B.H., Huguet, N., Conner, K., Caetano, R., Giesbrecht, N., Nolte, N. (2013). Acute Alcohol Intoxication and Suicide: A Gender-Stratified Analysis of the National Violent Death Reporting System. Injury Prevention, 19, 38-43.

Kaplan, M. S., Huguet, N., Orpana, H., Feeny, D., McFarland, B. H., & Ross, N. (2008). Prevalence and factors associated with thriving in older adulthood: a 10-year population-based study. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 63(10), 1097-1104.

Kaplan, M.S., Huguet, N., McFarland, B.H., & Newsom, J.T. (2007). Suicide Among Male Veterans: A Prospective Population-based Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61, 619-624.