Representation in Health Policy

On Tuesday, September 26, 2023, Dr. Mary Mitsdarffer, assistant professor in the Biden School, attended the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inaugural Hispanic Health Summit.

On top of her teaching duties, Mitsdarffer also serves as the current vice president of the Latino Caucus for Public Health (LCPH), which launched a partnership with HHS and three other Latine/Hispanic-serving organizations that share common goals of promoting the health and wellbeing of the Latino community. This exciting development was announced during the health summit by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, the first Latino in U.S. history in the role.

LCPH’s mission focuses on representing and advocating for the health interests of the Latine community, both within and outside the American Public Health Association (APHA), while providing leadership opportunities for students and young professionals to engage in research, policy, and advocacy efforts. Caucus efforts over the past few years have centered on Latine health and advancement in the field of public health and other health professions.

In addition to their partnership with HHS, LCPH produces a podcast, Sana Sana: Latinos in Public Health, holds regular “cafecito hours” for networking and connecting with other Latine professionals, and organizes numerous training events throughout the year. They were recently featured in APHA’S The Nation's Health celebrating their 50th anniversary and have a special issue underway for Spring 2024’s American Journal of Public Health (AJPH).

As a Mexican-American scholar, Mitsdarffer is a part of the two percent of Latine professors at the University of Delaware, and the roughly six percent of Latine faculty in the U.S.overall. She believes in increasing representation, especially as the demographics of the U.S. continue to shift and Latine make up one in four children under the age of 18 and about a fifth of the total population.​

“We need to see ourselves in the classrooms, as community leaders, as advocates, and as change makers. I am so grateful to the ones who have come before me, to those who have helped open minds and doors, I think that it’s our job as the newest generation of leaders to continue to push efforts forward for representation in the field as well as scholarship that accurately reflects the experiences and needs of our population,” she said. ​

“At the HHS health summit, one thing that Latine leaders kept bringing up is the centering of family and the influence our parents have had on our lives. That rings true for me,” she shared.​

"I grew up in a blue-collar multicultural household–my dad is White-American and my mom is first-generation Mexican-American–on the southwest side of Chicago,” Mitsdarffer noted, adding how lucky she feels to have grown up in her mother’s culture, ​​surrounded by multiple generations, who taught her the value of education and its use as a pathway to advocate for her community.

"​​I think it’s cool that I can use my empirical work to push for change and to add context to our experiences.”

Mitsdarffer's work focuses on structural inequities, social determinants of health, and resultant health disparities among youth. Her focus lies particularly on how policy can act as a barrier to services and needs among Latine populations.