About

Natalia Deeb-Sossa is a Professor in Chicana/o Studies at the University of California at Davis with over 16 years of teaching experience in public higher education. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, she moved to the U.S. in 1995 to pursue graduate studies and escape Colombian violence characterized by drug trade-related violence. Her academic work is interdisciplinary and transnational, focusing on Chicana feminist health scholarship, and she has made significant contributions in understanding how gender, race/ethnicity, and class influence reproductive justice, community politics, cultural citizenship, and social justice. Her research explores social dynamics within healthcare settings, community resilience, and the production of belonging among Latinx communities, emphasizing activist scholarship and community-based participatory research. Deeb-Sossa has authored and edited multiple books, including 'Doing Good,' which examines racial tensions and inequalities in healthcare workplaces, and recent volumes that highlight Latinx community building, resilience, and caregiving experiences. Her current research includes organizing feminist activism around safe medical abortions in Mexico and producing testimonios that center Latinx and Chicanx narratives of health, illness, and resilience, reflecting her ongoing commitment to social justice, community empowerment, and scholarly activism.

Selected publications

• The Case for Community‐Owned and ‐Managed Research and Community Health Assessments: Promotora‐Researchers’ Partnerships Generate Adaptive Health Evaluation Tools

  Community Science · 2025-11-15

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Federal and state health data sets often lack the granularity needed for medically underserved small towns. To address this, we conducted two community health assessment surveys in Knights Landing (KL), a rural agricultural town in California, to identify local healthcare strengths, barriers, and needs. Utilizing a Community‐Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) framework, our project centered on a collaboration between academic‐researchers and promotora‐researchers: community leaders who evolved from activists to empowered research partners over a decade. Data from an initial randomized survey in 2013 ( N = 88) informed the design of a follow‐up survey in 2018 ( N = 100). For the 2018 survey, promotora‐researchers made the executive decision to shift to snowball sampling, which provided a deeper understanding of the health experiences of the clinic's most vulnerable and historically underrepresented populations. Both surveys produced actionable community‐owned data that stimulated significant community organizing, led to expanded services at the student‐led clinic (KLOHC), and cultivated public health investments for Knights Landing. This study demonstrates how a decade‐long partnership, grounded in shared power and evolving into a Community‐Owned and ‐Managed Research (COMR) model, can generate a robust and adaptive health assessment tool. Ultimately, this work highlights the transformative power of community involvement in health research for creating impactful and enduring change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Caring for Students:

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2024-08-27

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Scarred by the Medical Health Care System:

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2024-08-27

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2024-08-27

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Cultivating University Students’ Critical Sense of Belonging Through Community-Responsive Scholar-Activism

  Collaborations A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice · 2024-04-05 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Our 13-year community-responsive scholar-activist research and service-learning endeavor aimed to strengthen retention by affirming undergraduate students’ sense of belonging and identities. This article examines findings related to students’ perceptions about their engagement in scholar-activism and offers analysis about the implications of these initiatives for universities interested in training students in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and engagement. Open-ended survey questions posed to 59 students were analyzed using summative content analysis. In our case study, community-responsive scholar-activist research and service-learning initiatives promoted a critical sense of belonging by providing opportunities for students to become aware of and contribute to the social, political, and economic needs of rural farmworkers. These activities also provided spaces for students to learn collaboratively with peers, project partners, and community members who share similar experiences and backgrounds, thereby nurturing a sense of identity and pride about their own immigrant and/or farmworking cultures. Likewise, this program provided opportunities for students to build relationships with faculty and staff dedicated to advocacy for scholars from racially, culturally, and linguistically marginalized communities, which can rectify a sense of exclusionary or censoring practices within the broader university community. Implications of this research suggest that incorporating community-responsive activist research and service-learning initiatives into university curriculums can provide undergraduate students with the support and skills needed to adapt to their new environment while engaging communities in fruitful collaborations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• So-called essential but treated as disposable: Northern California farmworkers working under COVID-19

  Latino Studies · 2024-09-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The workplace emerged as a primary site of infectious disease during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in occupations having little to no social distancing or potential for remote work. The pandemic had a huge impact on the physical and mental health of farmworkers, and it exposed the labor-market inequities in the United States, exacerbated by the lack of preventive measures to protect these vulnerable workers. In this paper, we use a social constructionist perspective to explore the meaning of “essential worker” by interviewing thirty farmworkers who during the pandemic came to work in a labor market shaped by exploitation and oppression and related unsafe working conditions. We argue that these workers, who are considered “essential” but treated as disposable, work under structural racist capitalism , and our findings contribute to a better understanding of how these Northern California farmworkers perceive being essential under these working conditions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reflection:

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2024-08-27

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• “Échale ganas, tú puedes”: Latinx/a/o Parents Supporting Students’ College Aspirations During COVID-19

  Journal of Latinos and Education · 2024-08-07 · 1 citations

  article

  This paper demonstrates how Latinx/a/o parents drew on various forms of capital to support their children's college application, choice, and transition during the pandemic. Latinx/a/o parents encouraged and supported their children by maintaining high college aspirations despite COVID-19 concerns, entrusting their children with their college choice decisions despite sometimes conflicting with their own, and supporting their children in their college transition through consejos and encouragement. This study contributes to the literature by centering Latinx/a/o parents' counternarratives that highlight their ongoing commitment to supporting students' college aspirations despite deficit notions exacerbated by the pandemic.

  PublisherDOI

• Environmental Health Assessment by Local Environmental Justice Experts for Evidence‐Based Decision‐Making in an Agricultural Community of Northern California

  Community Science · 2024-09-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Environmental justice research driven by academics and policymakers often overlooks the valuable insights and leadership of the communities most impacted by environmental hazards. When institution-led research approaches are employed, inadequate community ownership and limited institutional accountability hinder the effectiveness of environmental public health interventions. In contrast, a community-owned and -managed approach to environmental justice research can guide community members in developing evidence-based interventions. This paper outlines a community-led environmental health assessment survey (sample= 100) and resulting community actions over six years (2017 to 2023) in a Northern California farmworker community with a perceived high prevalence of cancer and exposure to environmental hazards in households, neighborhoods, and job sites. Local resident experts in Knights Landing, CA, documented community risk factors and exposures in collaboration with interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate student-researchers. The survey instrument focused on environmental hazards identified by local resident experts including vehicular and agricultural pollution, occupational pesticide contact, and sun exposure. Survey findings highlighted the need for targeted interventions to reduce environmental health risks, such as academic outreach programs, county investments in public services, and community-led mutual aid initiatives. Despite academic reservations about our non-random sampling method and data collection by local resident experts, our project sparked substantial actions and investments with minimal personnel and financial resources. Local leaders working with student-researchers developed more effective environmental public health interventions through a community-owned and -managed approach that went beyond the efforts of local regulatory and research institutions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Toward language justice: systemic dilemmas in the implementation of interpreting services in a California school district

  Critical Inquiry in Language Studies · 2023-11-08 · 2 citations

  article

  This ethnographic study applies a language justice (LJ) lens to the interpreting services provided to linguistically-minoritized families in a California school district. The LJ approach emerged out of immigrant rights organizing in the U.S. Southeast, and can be defined as systematic fair treatment of people of all linguistic backgrounds. In this paper, we examine how educators and parents envisioned LJ, along with systemic dilemmas highlighted by our ethnographic research on the district’s efforts to improve interpreting services. In our analysis, these efforts have necessarily made visible long-standing systemic inequities in the school district (of race, gender, and social class) which intersect with language, especially the crucial but undervalued role of bilingual staff members. Although we found discrepancies between the district’s LJ discourse and enactment of interpreting services, we note that these unfulfilled potentials provide fruitful space for praxis: reflection, analysis, and further collaborative efforts.

  PublisherDOI

Awards & honors

• 2022 Chancellor’s Fellowship for Diversity, Equity, and Incl…