Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, PhD, MPH, RN, CPH, FAAN, is an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) and the Faculty Lead for the Population Health Research Area of Excellence for the school’s Center for Nursing Research. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Community Engagement Core for Duke’s Clinical Translational Science Institute. She is passionate about improving health for all, especially for Hispanic/Latino(x) families.
Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda is among a group of Duke University faculty studying and identifying ways to mitigate the disproportionate spread of COVID-19 in Durham’s Latinx community. She is also a collaborator in LATIN-19 (Latinx Advocacy Team and Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19). Her work is especially important to the Duke community, as Latinx individuals account for only about 14 percent of Durham County’s population but have been disproportionality impacted by COVID-19. At one point, Latinx individuals represented nearly 77 percent of COVID-19 cases in the county, a trend far too many communities across the United States are experiencing.
Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda and her colleagues are concerned about the social and structural drivers influencing access to care, which have deepened the impact of COVID-19 on the Latinx communities. In a recent article in The Chronicle, Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda noted that “it’s concerning that people are not seeking care when they need it—not only because of hurdles related to immigration and trust issues, but also due to fear of financial strain. Whether it be medical bills they will have to pay or inability to go back to work following diagnosis, the Latinx community’s economic consequences related to COVID-19 are steep.”
Joined by a collaborative team of investigators and community organizations, Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda is also leading the SER (Salud, Estrés y Resiliencia/Health, Stress and Resilience) Hispano Project, which examines the effects of acculturation stress and resilience on the health and wellbeing of Latinx immigrants in the Research Triangle area. While Hispanic/Latinx immigrants are healthier than the general population when they arrive in the US, their health significantly declines over time (Antecol & Bedard, 2006; Cho et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2013). With little known about the impact of stressors on this population, Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda is hopeful they will gain new knowledge to inform interventions that improve the health of Latinx immigrants and capitalize on their strengths.
Like other important health-related research across the US, the scope of this project was impacted by the emergence of the COVID-19 public health emergency, which has also served to highlight the existing disparities in communities across the country. In response, measures for COVID-19 pandemic stress, resilience, and social determinants of health were added to the study, and new outreach and follow up was included for study participants that tested positive for COVID-19. The team is also adapting and piloting an enhanced intervention with Community Health Workers addressing COVID-19 in the Latinx community to address acculturation stress and resilience, key drivers of health in this population that have been identified in the SER Hispano Project.
The SER Hispano Project is an example of how National Institutes of Health (NIH) investments are improving the health of communities. As the country and the federal government endeavors to address social determinants of health and the need to close the health disparities gap that exists in so many communities, Dr. Gonzalez-Guarda’s work will be a valuable resource to inform policymaking efforts. She is hopeful the important data being collected can inform meaningful change and improve health outcomes.