All physicians and physician assistants, whether a WSMA member or
nonmember, were welcome to attend an informational meeting on May 20,
2021, featuring Leo Morales, MD, PhD, and Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, MD,
PhD. Watch the video of the informational meeting above.
Faculty
Leo Morales, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine and
Assistant Dean with the Office for Healthcare Equity and Co-Director
of the Latino Center for Health at the University of Washington. Dr.
Morales received his medical degree and master’s degree in public
health from the University of Washington, and his doctorate in policy
analysis from the Rand Graduate School. He completed a residency in
primary care internal medicine at the San Francisco General
Hospital/UCSF and a fellowship in primary care research at UCLA. Dr.
Morales’s research focuses on Latino Health, racial/ethnic and
socioeconomic disparities in health and the measurement of
patient-reported outcomes in diverse communities. Dr. Morales was the
Principal Investigator of the Washington State Latino Physician
Workforce study and lead author of the report,
Today's Changes for Serving Tomorrow's Diverse Communities:
Increasing the Latino Physician Workforce NOW.
Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, MD, PhD, is Professor of
Clinical Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of
California, Davis. He is the Founding Director of the Center for
Reducing Health Disparities at UC Davis Health and the Director of the
Community Engagement Program of the UCD Clinical Translational Science
Center (CTSC). He is a past member of the National Advisory Mental
Health Council (NAMHC), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He
is Past Chair of the Board of Directors of Mental Health America (MHA;
formerly the National Mental Health Association) and Past President of
the Board of Directors of NAMI California. He is a member of the
National Advisory Council of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration (SAMHSA) - Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS),
and board member of the California Health Care Foundation, Physicians
for a Health California, and the Public Health Institute. He was
recently appointed to the California COVID-19 Vaccine Drafting
Guidelines Workgroup with the charge of drafting guidelines for the
prioritization of supplies of available COVID-19 vaccines. He is a
national and international expert on health and mental health
comorbidities on diverse populations. Over the last 25 years, he has
held several World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health
Organization (PAHO) advisory board and consulting appointments and is
currently a member of the Executive Committee of WHO’s World Mental
Health Survey Consortium (WMH) and its Coordinator for Latin America
overseeing population-based national surveys of Mexico, Colombia,
Peru, Argentina, a regional survey of Brazil, and two surveys of the
Medellín, Colombia.
Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola’s applied research program has focused on
identifying unmet mental health needs and associated risk and
protective factors to better understand and meet population mental
health needs and achieve equity in health and mental health
disparities in underserved populations. He is also very active
translating health, mental health and substance abuse research
knowledge into practical information that is of public health value to
consumers, service administrators, and policy makers. He is the
on-site principal investigator of and conducted the Mexican American
Prevalence and Services Survey (MAPSS) – the second largest mental
health study done in the U.S. on Mexican Americans funded by NIMH and
the largest population-based comprehensive study done on farmworkers’
mental health, which also included Mixtecos. In the MAPSS study, he
identified the most prevalent health and mental health disorders in
the Mexican-origin population in California’s Fresno County and
reported that the rate of disorders increases the longer the
individual resides in the U.S and demonstrated that children of
immigrants have even greater rates of mental disorders. From the
results of this study, the research team developed a model of service
delivery that increased access to mental health services among the
Central Valley’s low-income, underserved, rural populations. He is a
Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) on two National Institute of
Health-funded ÓRALE COVID-19! project (a part of the RADx-UP national
initiative) and the UC Davis STOP COVID-19 CA (a part of the CEAL
national initiative) focusing his work primarily on farmworkers.
Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola is the author of more than 190 scientific
publications. He is the recipient of multiple awards including the
Vanderbilt University Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Medal of
Congress (“Medalla de la Cámara de Diputados”) of Chile for
work related to mental health research, the DHHS' Office of Minority
Health's 2005 National Minority Health Community Leader Award
(Hispanic Community), Washington, DC, the 2007 UC Davis Academic
Senate Scholarly Distinguished Service Award, the 2008 Latino Mental
Health Conference Excellence in Science and Research Award from NYU
Univ., the 2009 National Award of Excellence in Blending Research and
Practice from the National Hispanic Science Network, the 2012-2013 UC
Davis Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity and Community in
the Academic Senate category, the 2014 National Award of Excellence in
Public Service by the National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse,
the 2016 Dean's Award for Excellence in Equity, Diversity and
Inclusion - Community Engagement, UC Davis School of Medicine and was
named a distinguished member of the Top 10 U.S. Latino Physicians in
the May, 2016 issue of Latino Leaders Magazine. More recently, he
received the 2018 UC Davis Health Dean's Team Award for Inclusion
Excellence, along with the Center for Reducing Health Disparities Team
for outstanding multidisciplinary team contributions in the area of
community engagement, the 2018 NAMI California Multicultural Outreach
Excellence Award, the 2018 Mental Health California’s Research and
Health Disparities Award, and the 2018 Mental Health California’s
Research and Health Disparities Award. In September 2020, he received
the Ohtli Award, the highest honor granted by the Mexican government
to individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving the
well-being of Mexicans, Mexican Americans and other Latinos in the US
and abroad.
Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola was a member of the Institute of Medicine
(IOM/NRC) Committee on
Depression, Parenting Practices, and the Health Development of
Young Children
(2007-2009) report and a member of the IOM/NRC
Women’s Health Research: Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise
(2010) report. He is currently serving as co-chair of the Steering
Committee of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Assessing
Meaningful Community Engagement in Health and Health Care, a project
of the NAM Leadership Consortium and the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation.