USF College of Public Health’s Dr. Arlene Calvo, associate professor, and Erik Ruiz, PhD student, are recipients of the 2021 USF Hispanic Heritage Awards.

The USF Status of Latinos (SOL) Committee presents the awards each year to “outstanding Latinx members of the USF community making a profound difference” and recognizes scholarship recipients.

Their COPH colleagues Drs. Abraham Salinas Miranda, assistant professor and director of the Harrell Center, and Dina Martinez-Tyson, associate professor, nominated them.

Calvo is program coordinator of the Salud Latina USF initiative at the COPH, directs the public health practice and the public health generalist certificate programs, and also leads the COPH’s Panama Program in the City of Knowledge in addition to serving as an associate investigator for the Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies of Panama.

“She has more than 20 years of research experience in the United States, Panama, and other countries in the Latin American region, leading research at the population and community level focusing on the health of vulnerable groups in Latin America and the U.S.,” Salinas Miranda said in his nomination for Calvo. “Dr. Calvo is currently leading an extremely important effort for our Hispanic community, the Salud Latina initiative, which is a transdisciplinary enterprise that originated at the USF’s College of Public Health as a response to the unequal burden of COVID-19 on Spanish- speaking populations in the U.S. and globally.”   

Calvo established Salud Latina USF in January 2021. The group consists of Spanish-speaking faculty at the USF COPH who aim to inform the Spanish-speaking community about public health issues, combat misinformation and provide credible public health messages alongside training of Latinx students, community outreach and education, and research endeavors dedicated to the growing U.S. Latinx and Latin American populations.

“It was quite an honor to be nominated for the SOL awards by my peers. Through the COPH initiative Salud Latina, we are working at delivering appropriate messages in Spanish language that are easy to understand. We are also conducting research that is culturally appropriate, understanding the messages that are being delivered to and engaging Latinx students and communities in the U.S. and globally,” Calvo said. “As a Latina myself, I recognize the plight of international people living in other countries and what they have to go through to have access to health care and appropriate health information in their own language that is science-based.”

Calvo, who earned her PhD from the COPH in 2005 specializing in health education and her MPH in 1998, is based in Panama and is one of seven faculty awarded a seed grant and an internal award this year from the college to expand Salud Latina USF efforts.

Ruiz is a PhD student concentrating in community and family health and graduate research assistant currently working to support multiple research projects focused on the supportive care and health literacy needs of Latinx people in the U.S and in Latin America.

He previously served as a commercial specialist for an environmental health organization and a pharmaceutical research organization. He also has experience in supporting diverse LGBTQ+ youth groups and providing sexual behavioral health outreach to underserved communities.

“I have been Erik’s advisor since he started the doctoral program,” Martinez Tyson said in her nomination of Ruiz. “He is in the top 1 percent of students I have had the pleasure to work with. He has maintained a 4.0 GPA this past academic year while taking 28 credit hours. Erik is highly motivated and action oriented. He wants to do research that will enact social change to address Latin health disparities and create equity through community engaged public health initiatives that are inclusive of diverse populations.”

Ruiz has also actively been involved with the Salud Latina USF initiative, working collaboratively with faculty, participating in monthly webinars and conducting content analysis of Spanish-language social media to examine disinformation.

“He has taken a leadership role and coordinates the work of six other Latino students who are also working on the project,” Martinez Tyson said. “Through these efforts he has become a peer mentor to other graduate Latino students at the COPH and is currently working to start a chapter of the Latino Caucus for Public Health at USF. He is motivated, brings people together and takes ownership of the tasks he is assigned or leads with purpose and humility.”

“I felt honored to even have been nominated!” Ruiz said.  “To me, this award was the recognition of the collective efforts of my family, mentors, peers and colleagues who have allowed me to work in the academic and community spaces. Furthermore, I felt as if this award was a formal recognition by USF of the importance of conducting public health research and praxis with Latinx communities that will hopefully inspire other students at USF to engage in these activities as well.”

Ruiz said addressing public health issues in the Latino community is important for many reasons.

“We are the largest ethnic minority group in the U.S., and we experience health burdens disproportionately to other racial and ethnic groups,” he said. “I also think that culture, including Latinx cultures, shapes how we make health decisions, perceive risk and promote health within our own communities. Capturing these perspectives from culturally diverse Latinx communities is an important step in understanding how we can work together to overcome adverse health outcomes.”

He said he is very thankful for earning the award and for his experiences so far at the COPH.

“I am so grateful to have come to the College of Public Health at USF because I have been able to learn from the most amazing and dedicated educators and mentors, including Drs. Dina Martinez Tyson,  Cheryl Vamos, Jerome Galea, and all the faculty working through the new Salud Latina Initiative at USF,” he said.

Learn more about the Salud Latina USF initiative here.

 Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health