Health Resources

Hello! My name is Kashika Bharol and I am a 1st-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley, studying Molecular & Cell Biology. As an intern for the Follow-Up Committee, I help develop surveys, work with patients, and conduct data analyses to determine medical needs and gaps in care that need to be addressed.

The accessibility of health resources is influenced by a range of factors, including community-wide awareness, financial accommodations, and location -- whether it is a physical location, or intangible, like an online resource. An uncommonly-addressed element of accessibility is also language and translation. Doing a simple online search with the keywords “COVID-19 resources,” for instance, results in thousands of English-language resources, but locating the same health resources written in Punjabi is a much more challenging task. Those who are not as fluent or comfortable with reading in English have reduced access to health resources, or have to work harder to search for them. To help combat language-based barriers to healthcare accessibility, the Berkeley BPSHI website hosts a growing collection of resources that are available in both English and Punjabi.

Community-wide awareness of resources is also an important factor contributing to accessibility. Oftentimes, areas of health that are considered to be taboo in South Asian culture -- such as mental and women’s health -- are not spread throughout the community. Even if health resources are available, if knowledge of them is not being spread through advertising, word-of-mouth, or by any other means, then few will be able to utilize them. Through projects on increasing access to women’s health and mental health in the Bay Area, Berkeley BPSHI is working to spread knowledge and community-wide awareness of such resources.