Lorena Estrada-Martinez, PhD, MPH

Dr. Lorena M. Estrada-Martínez earned her doctorate in health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan, where she also holds a Master of Public Health. She joined the George Warren Brown School of Social Work in August 2011 as an assistant professor of public health.

Before coming to Brown, Dr. Estrada-Martínez was the Paul B. Cornely Post-doctoral Research Scholar at University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Ethnicity Culture and Health. During her fellowship, she conducted research on the social determinants of health and Latino health disparities. During this time she was also a research assistant with the University of Michigan’s Prevention Research Center. In this role she analyzed data from the Flint Adolescent Study, looking at violent and non-violent delinquency among African American youths transitioning into adulthood. In addition, she was a Fellow in the Emerging Scholars Interdisciplinary Network Summer Fellowship Program in Applied Multi-Ethnic Research at ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Other research interests included the health and well-being of Latinos and Afro-Caribbean populations and how the variations in immigration processes across them impact mental health and behavioral outcomes.

Over the course of her professional career, she has taught courses on research methodology, theories of health promotion, youth violence and injury prevention, Latino and immigrant health, racial and ethnic health disparities, women’s health, and adolescent health behaviors. Most recently, Dr. Estrada-Martínez was elected as a permanent member of the Brown School of Social Work’s newly formed Diversity Committee. She also serves as a co-chair on the executive board of Washington University’s Latino Link, founder and coordinator of St. Louis Latino Studies Workgroup, and a member of Violence Prevention Specialization Subcommittee, Children, Youth, and Families Committee and the Law, Culture, and Identity Initiative Advisory Board.

Dr. Estrada-Martínez is interested in understanding and reducing health disparities, particularly related to the mental health and risk behavioral outcomes of Latino and immigrant youth in the US. She takes a transdisciplinary approach that encompasses public health, sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, public policy, demography, law, and medicine. Her current projects examine neighborhood and family environments’ as contexts for risk and protection, and intra- and inter-ethnic disparities in youth violence, risky sexual behaviors, academic achievement, and substance abuse.