Abstract

Golden Valley Health Centers (GVHC) serves the population of California’s Central Valley. The mission of the clinic is to deliver health care to people from all walks of life in the surrounding area. This project aims to help reduce barriers for patients suffering from mental health disorders.
A particularly disadvantaged population that GVHC serves is the homeless population. This can be a rather complex task, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic having a detrimental impact on the surrounding area, making it more difficult for these patients to get access. GVHC has designed a mobile clinic that is able to gain access to disadvantaged populations who are unable or unwilling to seek care at the clinic due to a multitude of reasons. This model has been built around the inequity and diminished care because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique characteristics of the population in the surrounding rural area.
After attending site visits with the mobile clinic team, we were able to collect information on the mobile clinic model, population of interest, and location. It is our hope that this project can be used as a stepping stone to for GVHC to further improve health care delivery, in addition to serving as a model for street medicine in a rural health care setting. Ultimately this model may be used by health care institutions in search of reaching marginalized populations that may have trouble navigating through an intimidating health care system.