Healthcare Disparities in 2023

Alicia Fernandez, MD
Director, UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence
Associate Dean, Population Health and Health Equity
Professor, UCSF Department of Medicine

Alicia Fernandez, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. She is the founding Director of the UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence, a HRSA and UCSF-funded initiative to increase academic diversity. Dr. Fernandez directs the Latinx and Immigrant Health Research Program at the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, which generates actionable research to increase health equity and reduce health disparities. Since July 2021, Dr. Fernandez is the Associate Dean of Population Health and Health Equity at UCSF.

Dr. Fernandez’s research expertise includes language and literacy barriers in health care, healthcare equity in chronic disease, and racism in medicine. Most recently, her NIH-funded research has focused on improving diabetes care among immigrant populations. Dr. Fernandez has served on the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Health Literacy since 2014. Dr.

Fernandez is on the Board of Governors and Chair of the Science Oversight Committee at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Center. Since 2020, she has served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

At the end of the presentation, attendees will be able to:

1. Review key research in healthcare disparities.
2. Explicate the role of language barriers in chronic disease care.
3. List three innovations to address healthcare disparities.