Community Partner: Mantle Center
Mantle Center was started in 2023 by Dr. Earnest Davis, who created the organization based on the gaps he noticed in care between the patients and their physicians or health networks as a whole after being a patient himself following a kidney transplant. He also aimed to identify health disparities in communities in Cincinnati and implement efforts to improve them.
Mantle Center’s overarching goal is bettering health outcomes via community outreach. They work with institutions and communities to better health outcomes on both sides of the spectrum. Currently, they are working on quality-of-life committees in areas of Cincinnati with lower life expectancies such as Bond Hill, Lower Price Hill, Kennedy Heights, and Roselawn. They also have a program called Young Researchers, which encourages adolescents to get involved in the community and carry out their own participatory research project. Another project they are working on is making AI accessible to patients with kidney transplants, by means of support groups that provide summaries of what was discussed and suggestions for symptom improvement if mentioned, which is then transmitted to the patient and their physician. Lastly, they facilitate focus groups discussing various topics, and they will be facilitating the meetings for the Photovoice project regarding climate change impacts on mental health.
About Micaiah
My name is Micaiah Peele, I grew up in Mason, OH and I graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.S. in Neuroscience. I chose this elective because I wanted to get more involved in the community during my last year of medical school and found a compelling research project surrounding climate change and its effects on the mental health of those in a high-risk community via a participatory research methodology. The project partners with Mantle Center, which is an organization that focuses on health disparities across different communities in Cincinnati, which is something I am interested in learning more about.
I plan to apply to psychiatry residency, with the hope of staying local to serve the community I grew up in. I would like to do a fellowship in child psychiatry as well. My ultimate goal is to help children, adolescents, and adults with a variety of acute and chronic mental health concerns.