About
Arturo Vargas Bustamante, PhD, MA, MPP, Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, received a Master of Arts degree in Economics and a Masters and Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Vargas Bustamante is a bi-lingual (English/Spanish) and bicultural researcher with a broad background in health policy, with specific training and expertise in health care disparities, survey research and secondary data analysis, health care cost estimation, economic valuation and program/intervention design and evaluation. His research investigates unexplored or underexplored topics on access to health care, predominantly among Latinos/Hispanics and immigrants in the United States . AHRQ and private foundations have funded his research.
Cohort
2015-16
Projects
- “Factors affecting hypertension risk awareness and self-management among socially isolated Mexican-American older adults.” Dr. Vargas Bustamante’s RCMAR/CHIME- and UCLA CTSI-funded primary data-collection and analysis project seeks to explore the main facilitators and barriers that contribute to hypertension risk awareness (HRA) and self-management skills (SMS) among Mexican-American older adults (65 years and older) with diagnosed hypertension or at risk of developing hypertension. The main objective of the proposed study is to identify and adequately model disparity factors that impact HRA & SMS among socially isolated Mexican-American older adults to frame a community-based intervention in East Los Angeles, a community that is 97.5% Mexican-American. The main study hypothesis is that reducing social disconnectedness improves HRA & SMS among Mexican-American older adults (65 years and above) with diagnosed hypertension or who are at risk of developing hypertension. The study findings will leverage the RCMAR goal of “creating culturally sensitive health measures that assess the health status of minority elders with greater precision, and increase the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve their health and well-being.”