The Orange County Women’s Health Project, an initiative that has focused on women’s health needs and disparities for over a decade, has found a new home at UC Irvine’s Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health. This transition aims to sustain the project's work, which began with its first Women’s Health Summit at UC Irvine in 2012.
The project has brought together various stakeholders from across Orange County, including healthcare and social service providers, government and nonprofit agencies, researchers, educators, funders, and policymakers. These collaborations have sought to identify pressing health concerns for women and develop lasting, countywide solutions.
Over the years, the network of partners included organizations such as the Coalition of Orange County Community Health Centers, Orange County United Way, CalOptima Health, Community Health Initiative of Orange County, Human Options, Families Forward, and the Orange County chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. This broad engagement reflects the project’s goal of listening to diverse voices and experiences.
Sora Park Tanjasiri, a professor of health, society and behavior at Wen Public Health, played a role in this transition. She served on the Orange County Women’s Health Project advisory board, strengthening its connection to the university and facilitating the school becoming the new home for the initiative. This move allows for the continuation of more than ten years of dialogues, partnerships, and community relationships.
The philosophy guiding this work, according to Bernadette Boden-Albala, founding dean of the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health, is that "Some of the most important public health work begins by listening." Boden-Albala emphasizes that when researchers, health professionals, and community members collaborate as equal partners, a clearer understanding emerges of women's experiences, existing gaps in care, and how to focus efforts for the greatest impact.
This approach extends beyond women’s health within Wen Public Health. Researchers at the school regularly partner with local organizations. For instance, faculty have collaborated with the Orange County Environmental Justice Education Fund in Santa Ana on community-driven investigations into lead contamination. Scholars have also worked with Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County to explore how food pantries can serve as centers for health and social services.
Another example is at El Sol Academy, a dual-immersion charter school in Santa Ana, where parents participated in a photography project. This initiative documented everyday challenges affecting their families and children, providing researchers with direct insight into local priorities through the residents’ own perspectives. These partnerships operate on the principle that those experiencing a public health problem often possess crucial understanding that researchers cannot gain solely from a distance.
Tanjasiri’s own work illustrates this principle. As a cancer prevention expert with over two decades of experience, she focuses on cancer-related health disparities, promotes early detection of breast and cervical cancer, and conducts locally based participatory research. She is also the associate director of community outreach and engagement at the UC Irvine Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her work acknowledges that preventing conditions like cervical cancer involves understanding barriers such as insurance access, transportation, or difficulty taking time off work, and then working with communities to enhance screening accessibility.
The Women’s Health Summit remains a key component of this broader effort. The upcoming 2026 gathering, titled “Her Mind Matters: Advancing Women’s Brain Health & Longevity,” will concentrate on brain health. It will bring together researchers, clinicians, advocates, and community members to discuss topics including dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, menopause, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, prevention, and healthy aging.
The specific summit topic may change annually, but the core question remains consistent: identifying who has access to essential information, resources, and care for healthier lives, and who does not. The project emphasizes that relationships and ideas generated during events like the summit can lead to lasting studies, educational programs, or services designed around the actual needs of women. This ongoing exchange exemplifies UC Irvine’s broader public health approach, where communities are active participants in shaping research questions, prioritizing problems, and ensuring discoveries reach the people they are intended to serve.
