NCID-1127
Maria Militzer
Paul B. Cornely Postdoctoral Scholar in the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health
University of Michigan
Education/Degree:
1 Health Behavior and Health Education (the University of Michigan School of Public Health)
About
Maria Militzer is a public health reseacher and a social justice community advocate. After migrating from Mexico, where she earned her BS degree in veterinary medicine, Maria earned a master's degree in international trade and language from Eastern Michigan University. She worked as a healthcare interpreter for over a decade where she observed how race/ethnicity, class, and power-differentials influence doctor-patient interactions with detrimental effects on health outcomes of low income immigrants of color. These observations motivated her to obtain a doctoral degree from the UM School of Public Health. In 2019, she joined Mexiquenses en Michigan, a nonprofit grassroots organization led by Spanish speaking immigrants in SE Michigan. Since the onset of COVID pandemic, Militzer and Mexiquenses have worked tirelessly to increase equitable access to financial relief and Covid-19 & flu vaccines for Latinx immigrant families.
Current Work
María A. Militzer is the Paul B. Cornely Postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture & Health UM-SPH. Her research addresses socioeconomic inequities on health outcomes of Latinx immigrants and their families in the US. Her dissertation examined psychosocial, cultural, and environmental factors influencing physical activity patterns of pregnant women of Mexican origin. Currently, she studies how language barriers and discriminatory practices in healthcare systems intersect to produce limited access to quality healthcare services. Beside advancing understanding of how language discrimination in healthcare settings impacts health outcomes of Spanish-speaking immigrants, her research focuses on creating community capacity to decrease language barriers and advocating for equitable healthcare delivery policy. The Board of Commissioners honored her work on increasing access to COVID-19 vaccines for immigrant communities of color in Washtenaw, MI.
Research Area Keyword(s)
Health, Immigrants, inequities, language access, Latinx