Associate Professor
Arizona State University
Phoenix, Arizona, United States
I investigate mental health, health disparities, and community engagement techniques to mitigate the adverse affects of structural inequities and barriers to care that disproportionately affect racial/ethnic minorities and those with severe mental illness. For this research, I combined transdisciplinary theories and empirical evidence from social science, social work, and public health and developed a research portfolio to answer important issues necessary for building multilayered culturally competent treatments for health disparity groups. Particularly, I focus on social determinants of health (SDOH) to explain racial/ethnic minority and immigrant disparities in health outcomes and access to health care. To advance current understanding of multilevel factors contributing to health disparities, I used social network analysis (SNA) to evaluate interpersonal connections as a way by which societal norms and attitudes pertinent to health care utilization are transmitted and adopted (2U54MD002316-11; NIH/NIMHD). My study has been financed by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is an indication of the significance and quality of my research ideas. I am honored to be a 2020 Health Disparities Research Institute scholar who received a week-long training, an effort of the NIMHD Director to promote early career health disparities academics. I am also a Co-Principal Investigator for NIH-funded RADx-UP program study addressing the significant barriers Latinx, AI, and AA experience disproportionately in gaining access to COVID-19 testing (3U54MD002316-14S1).
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Saturday, November 12, 2022
7:45 AM – 8:15 AM