- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center invites UC ANR scientists to apply for research funds.
Environmental health science is a branch of public health that is focused on environmental determinants of health.
“This funding is intended to support researchers who are new to EHS to get preliminary data that they can use to pursue larger funding opportunities,” said Shosha Capps, associate director for community engagement. “We highly encourage a community-engaged approach, and part of my job is to support researchers to form effective partnerships with communities in the Central Valley that are impacted by their work.”
“A lot of the topic areas we fund research in are also of interest to folks at ANR, including pesticide use (from a human health perspective), air quality, and water quality and quantity,” said Capps, formerly of the UC Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education Program. “Plus ANR affiliates are already going to be oriented toward applied research and working directly with the communities impacted by their research.”
A list of this year's community research priorities, as well as projects funded in the past, is at https://environmentalhealth.ucdavis.edu/scientists/funding-opportunities/pilot-projects-program.
“A lot of them are in the fields of toxicology, exposure science and epidemiology, but EHS is a multidisciplinary field and we're hoping to reach beyond the usual disciplines this year,” Capps said.
She encourages UC ANR academics to apply with a partner; for example, collaborating with a health researcher to look at the impacts of environmental issues on the health and well-being of farmworkers, farmers or rural communities.
“If someone at ANR works with a community partner who has brought these kinds of issues up as priorities, but they feel it's beyond their expertise, they could refer the community partner to me, and I could try to match them to an appropriate EHS researcher,” Capps said.
For more information, contact Capps at sacapps@ucdavis.edu or (864) 952-9210.
- Author: Conor McCabe
University of California students Anna Rios and Conor McCabe have been selected as Global Food Initiative Fellows for UCANR during the 2021-22 school year. Their projects will involve working with campus-based academics, UC Cooperative Extension professionals, and staff to conduct research and communications to improve food security, nutrition and agriculture sustainability for communities across California.
Rios is a senior in molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley. Rios is originally from the small rural town of Williams, about two hours north of the Bay Area. In her home community, she noticed the prevalence of packaged and processed foods, along with health burdens present. Coming into college, Rios had no interest in research, but this slowly shifted as she gained more exposure to research through her involvement with Lorrene Ritchie, director of the Nutrition Policy Institute. In this upcoming year, she will work on two GFI projects which focus on improving nutrition in infants and school-aged children through nutritious school meals.
“As a first-generation college student and daughter of immigrants, I'm looking to take the findings of my research work to benefit not one or two individuals, but rather multiple generations through program and policy change and reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases in my hometown and communities across California,” Rios said.
McCabe is a Ph.D. student in animal science at UC Davis. His research focuses on the intersection of agriculture and the environment by reducing the environmental impact of intensive cattle production. Every part of McCabe's past has focused on Extension and agriculture programs from raising pigs in 4-H to show at the county fair to talking with decisionmakers on Capitol Hill for funding for agriculture research and Extension programs. His project for the GFI will focus on strategic communications on food-related issues for underserved communities.
“I'm strongly interested in career opportunities in food and agriculture and its relationship with policy implications,” said McCabe. “This fellowship is sure to serve as a key experience to continue my engagement into positively impacting California communities.”
The Global Food Initiative was founded in 2014 under then UC President Janet Napolitano with the goal of conquering the question of how to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population that is expected reach 8 billion by 2025. Fellows across the 10 UC campuses and Agriculture and Natural Resources work on projects or internships that focus on food issues. Participants receive professional development, tours of food and agriculture sites throughout California, and a $3,000 annual stipend to support their education experience.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Open Enrollment is approaching, and you'll have more help than ever this year in choosing the right benefits for you and your family. In the meantime, we want to give you a heads up about a couple of important changes.
New Open Enrollment deadline this year
This year UC's open enrollment period will start Thursday, Oct. 28, at 8 a.m. and end Friday, Nov. 19, at 5 p.m. That's earlier than our usual Open Enrollment deadline of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. You'll still have more than three weeks to make your benefits choices and our benefits professionals will have some needed extra time to ensure UC's systems are up to date for 2022.
New pharmacy benefit manager
Navitus Health Solutions (Navitus) is replacing Anthem IngenioRx as the administrator of prescription drug benefits for the following plans: CORE, UC Care, UC Health Savings Plan, UC High Option Supplement to Medicare and UC Medicare PPO. As the pharmacy benefit manager, Navitus sets clinical policy and guidelines for medications and for the processing of pharmacy-related claims.
UC regularly reviews the administrators of our health and welfare plans to ensure members receive the highest levels of service at the most competitive prices. After a thorough process, a committee representing faculty, staff and retirees determined that Navitus would offer significant advantages as the pharmacy benefit manager for these UC plans.
Continued focus on member service and convenience
Navitus offers convenient options for filling prescription drugs that members are accustomed to, including participating University of California Health pharmacies, a large retail network (Costco, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and Safeway/Vons), mail order delivery through Costco and access to specialty medications through Lumicera and participating UC specialty pharmacies.
Navitus will also provide robust support to help you better understand and manage your prescription drug benefit, including:
- 24/7 customer care
- A pre-enrollment website (coming in October) with tools for finding participating pharmacies, checking drug prices at the pharmacy of your choice, and looking up drugs included in the formulary (the list of drugs that are covered by the plan)
- A mobile app (for non-Medicare members) and member portal, for easy access to all your prescription medication information
There are no changes to the standard cost-sharing amounts (copayments or coinsurance) for prescription drugs due to the transition to Navitus. However, every pharmacy benefit manager uses its own formulary. While the Anthem IngenioRx and Navitus formularies are similar, there are some differences, which could affect your individual medication costs.
More detailed information about the new prescription drug plan will be sent to you near the beginning of Open Enrollment. You will also receive information from UC later in the fall about any specific impacts to you or your medications because of the change.
Stay tuned for more Open Enrollment updates!
- Author: Ricardo Vela
UC ANR continues to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM) through Oct. 15, with a series of public Zoom events to create awareness of Latinos' struggles and celebrate their contributions to the U.S. and the world.
Under the slogan “Celebrating Together Hispanic Heritage Month,” we have partnered with volunteers from UC Master Gardeners, 4-H Youth advisors, and CalFresh Healthy Living, UC educators to bring these programs to the Latino community. We have three Zoom forums with topics that we learned are important to Spanish-speaking Latinos.
October 6 Zoom Community Forum in Spanish
“Be Better Parents, How to Make Your Kid a Leader”
Guest Speaker: Claudia Diaz, 4-H youth development advisor
Recording at https://youtu.be/kDk8yF50nnU
October 13 Zoom Community Forum in Spanish
“How to Have a Successful Vegetable Garden”
Guest Speakers: UC Master Gardener volunteers from UCCE Sonoma County
October 15 Zoom Community Forum in Spanish
“The Power of a Nutritional Meal”
Guest Speaker: Susana Matias Medrano, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in nutritional science and toxicology, UC Berkeley
To register, visit https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=35503 or email ucnews.spanish@ucr.edu.
More information at https://ucanr.edu/sites/Spanish/Hispanic_Heritage_Month/Mes_de_la_Herencia_Hispana_2021/Calendario_de_charlas_por_Zoom_999.
For Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month this year, UC ANR is recognizing three Latino professionals who serve their communities while upholding UC ANR's public values of academic excellence, honesty, integrity, and community service. This year the honorees are:
Leticia Christian is a CalFresh Healthy Living, UC educator in Alameda County. As a physician in her native Cuba, she helped people stay healthy and here in California as a nutrition educator she strives to do the same.
Gersain Lopez loves nature and at his job, his passion, commitment and hard work have made him a favorite ag technician at Desert Research and Extension Center.
Liliana Vega is a 4-H youth advisor for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Vega is an avid advocate for the Latinx community and social justice.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Charles Geddes Summers, UC Davis emeritus entomologist, passed away on Aug. 12 from acute respiratory failure in his hometown of Clinton, Utah. He was 79.
Summers earned bachelor's and master's degrees in zoology and entomology respectively at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and a doctorate degree in entomology at Cornell University in 1970, the same year he joined the UC Berkeley faculty and began working at Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. He later moved to UC Davis.
“The job at Kearney was an absolutely perfect fit for me,” Summers said 42 years later when he retired in 2012. “It was a dream job. I look forward to coming to work every morning and would sometimes shake my fist at the sun going down at night. I've loved every minute I've been here.”
Although Summers had an Agricultural Experiment Station appointment, he made a point of working with UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors and specialists to deliver pest-management research results to farmers.
“Extension work has been one of the most enjoyable things I've done,” he said. “I've worked with farm advisors on research projects, farm calls and given hundreds and hundreds of extension talks at their grower meetings.”
Reflective mulches were a unique and effective pest-management strategy introduced by Summers and his longtime research partner, Jim Stapleton, UC Cooperative Extension integrated pest management advisor.
Stapleton shared the following memories of working with Summers.
Charlie Summers As I Knew Him
By James Stapleton
I first connected with Charlie when I was transitioning to my new job as IPM Plant Pathologist at the Kearney Agricultural Center in 1990. I knew him casually at first, as one of several entomologist colleagues at that time on our Kearney faculty. However, later in 1991, my lab crew and I were out in the field applying an experimental, sprayable bed mulch product and painting the mulched beds silver. At one point, Charlie pulled up to the edge of the field in his car, and after watching us for a few minutes, got out and walked over to me to ask what we were doing. I told him we were doing product feasibility testing and one of the potential applications was vegetable crop virus control using reflective bed mulch. He asked if we were working with an entomologist and after my negative reply, he indicated that he would be interested in becoming a collaborator on the project. Little did we know at that time that we would spend the next 15+ years in nearly daily contact as close collaborators and friends.
I believe our friendship was deepened when we discovered that both of us had historical family ties to Ogden, Utah, a formerly rough-and-tumble frontier and railroad town. We often shared anecdotes and old family photos of times gone by.
Our labs meshed well right from the beginning – Charlie's lab was run by staff research associate Albert Newton, and I had an excellent lab crew with future UCCE advisors Roger Duncan, Tom Turini, and a little later, Ruth Dahlquist-Willard. Over the years, Charlie was absolutely top-notch as a field entomologist and project co-director. Under his leadership, Charlie's teams were always highly motivated, organized, and productive. We published our first collaborative research report in 1992.
In 1995, I started teaching plant pathology courses part-time at nearby Fresno State, which provided the opportunity to bring many students out to Kearney to do internships, independent studies, and thesis projects on various aspects of pest management and agronomy. They would be assigned to conduct research for both of our labs, and they received excellent training on the field projects. Over the years we trained dozens of students.
Charlie and I initiated our collaboration to evaluate reflective, sprayable bed mulches. It did not take long to confirm that they were quite effective at repelling insects and providing control of plant viruses. Our findings struck a chord, and we soon began to garner grant funding to study additional facets of light-mediated insect repulsion and plant virus control. Later, we began looking at effects of various cover crop mulches, and Kearney-based cropping systems specialist Jeff Mitchell joined our group in the late 1990s, to focus on the agronomic aspects of the work.
Before we ended our active work, shortly before Charlie's retirement, we had published more than 35 reports and research papers, conducted dozens of outreach trainings, and had our work highlighted in numerous news outlets including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and by national radio commentator Paul Harvey on his Noon News and Comment broadcast.
I was deeply honored, as I'm sure Jeff Mitchell was, that Charlie chose to recognize our collaboration when he received the Entomology Society of America's C.W. Woodworth Award in 2009. Charlie sometimes presented a somewhat gruff exterior persona, but once you got to know him you realized that he was a very compassionate and caring man. I always looked forward to receiving Charlie's annual, tongue-in-cheek Christmas e-mail he sent out to everyone at Kearney – “Bah, Humbug to All!”
It was with great pleasure and satisfaction that I had the privilege of working closely with Charlie (and Jeff) for many years. We had a great time and we motivated each other to be highly productive. My memories of Charlie will always be very special to me.
For more about Summers' life, see his obituary at https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/charles-summers-obituary?id=6302785.