Vanessa has worked as a full-spectrum birth worker, promoting birth equity and reducing maternal mortality in marginalized groups. She conducted a landscape analysis with the South LA African American Infant and Maternal Mortality Community Action Team, addressing maternal health issues through program evaluation and multi-sector collaboration.
As an MPH Primary Care Champion Fellow, she collaborated with healthcare leaders to improve medication adherence among patients with uncontrolled diabetes and led a clinical improvement project that established a Diabetes Clinic and significantly advanced diabetes care management at Altamed in East Los Angeles.
During her internship at Public Health Center 21 in Bangkok, Thailand, she engaged with patients, collected, and analyzed data, and addressed global healthcare disparities. She educated diabetes and hypertension patients on healthy lifestyle behaviors, focusing on nutrition and physical activity. Additionally, she contributed to research by collecting and analyzing data for the Institute of Urban Disease Control & Prevention, gaining experience in international research methodologies.
Vanessa strives to reduce health disparities by integrating collaborative education design, research, clinical services, community engagement, and social justice to support value-based healthcare. Her areas of interest are community-based participatory research, and transdisciplinary approaches aimed to drive positive changes in global healthcare delivery.
