As many of you know, alongside my community advocacy work, I am currently a Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) student at the University of La Verne. My goal in this program is to research how our institutions actually work—and often, how they don't work for the communities facing the most significant hurdles.
Here is a sneak peek into my latest research focus. It centers on a concept that sounds complicated but is something many of us have experienced: Administrative Chrononormativity.
In simple terms, this is the idea that our institutions set rigid timelines (like the "9-to-5" standard) that prioritize their own convenience over the reality of people's lives.
When a clinic has limited hours, forms take weeks to process, or appointments have indefinite waiting periods, "time" becomes an invisible barrier to healthcare access—especially for marginalized groups like the Queer community, gig workers, or parents with rigid schedules.
Below is the abstract of the research paper I am developing on this topic, which examines these barriers and highlights organizations such as the Black Researchers Collective that are challenging these delays.
Research Abstract:
Public administration and health policy traditionally operate on straight time—a linear, standardized temporal logic that prioritizes institutional efficiency over community responsiveness. This review argues that this "administrative chrononormativity" creates systematic barriers for populations with non-normative life cycles, effectively trapping marginalized communities in a perpetual "waiting room" while health crises escalate.
To illustrate this temporal conflict, this analysis contrasts the administrative gatekeeping of gender-affirming care against the "informed consent" model. Where traditional policies impose linear waiting periods—forcing patients to prove their identity over time—informed consent models operate on queer time, synchronizing medical access with the patient’s immediate urgency. The former prioritizes risk management; the latter prioritizes survival.
Furthermore, this review presents the Black Researchers Collective (BRC) as a critical case study in resisting administrative delay. Through their methodological pillar, the "Power of Story," the BRC challenges the "ivory tower" timeline of data extraction and delayed analysis. By validating lived experience and narrative ownership as immediate, actionable policy data, the BRC demonstrates how communities can refuse the administrative imperative to wait for external quantitative validation.
The review concludes that achieving health equity requires a fundamental shift in the public administrator's role: from a temporal gatekeeper to a community synchronizer. Policy timelines must be restructured to value qualitative, nonlinear realities. If administrative processes are legally "on time" but communities remain in crisis, the timeline itself is a policy failure. Administrators must learn to set their watches to the community's time, ensuring that support keeps pace with the need.
Closing Thoughts
I believe that to achieve accurate health equity, we need policies that are "chronologically inclusive"—systems designed for real lives, not just standard business hours.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you experienced "time" as a barrier to accessing care or services in our community?
