Violeta Rodriguez Palacios

Dr. Rodriguez will be considering graduate students as a primary research advisor for the Fall 2025.

Broadly, my research is focused on understanding the mechanisms that contribute to, maintain and/or exacerbate health disparities among minoritized youth and families.  My research program aims to achieve three major aims, with the overarching goal of improving health outcomes for underserved populations globally (e.g., Global South countries, racially and ethnically minoritized people, immigrant families, Spanish-speaking caregivers and youth, LGBTQIA+ families, families disproportionately affected by chronic illness). Firstly, I strive to gain a better understanding of the causal and perpetuating factors contributing to health disparities among youth and their parents in understudied, underserved, and underprivileged groups. Secondly, I am committed to improving assessment methods used to evaluate health outcomes and predictors (e.g., parenting) in parents and youth, ensuring their validity across different cultural (cross-cultural and multicultural), research, and clinical contexts. Through the development of culturally sensitive and contextually appropriate assessment tools, I aim to improve the accuracy of how we assess various factors (e.g., parenting) in research and interventions. Lastly, I am interested in the translation of evidence-based health promotion strategies and interventions into underserved settings to promote health equity using community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles, and informed by implementation science frameworks (e.g., MOST, CFIR).