Texas CEAL Project: Addressing Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19, Long COVID-19, & other Chronic Diseases Among Minority Communities in TX through Research , Outreach, & Education

Under the umbrella of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL), the Texas CEAL Consortium began in 2020 to address the urgent need for minority communities to participate in COVID-19 therapeutic and vaccine trials. Since then, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands of people in Texas through the health initiatives of our regional partners.

Palak Desai is the Project Coordinator for the Texas Community Engagement Alliance, or CEAL. Palak got a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Public Health from the University of North Texas Health Science Center. She is Certified in Public Health and is a part of Delta Omega, the Honorary Society in Public Health. After receiving her MPH during the COVID-19 pandemic, she sought to work in an environment that could assist those most heavily impacted from the pandemic, thus leading her to the Texas CEAL initiative. She has worked on this project for the last three years and hopes to share its impact with all.