UC Davis health disparities expert elected chair of national mental health organization

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, professor of clinical internal medicine and director of the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities, was unanimously elected this week as chair of the National Mental Health Association's (NMHA) board of directors. He is the first Latino to serve as board chair for the national organization and its 340 affiliates around the country, which focus on improving mental health and addressing all aspects of mental illness.

Aguilar-Gaxiola is an internationally renowned expert on mental health in ethnic populations and was honored for his work with the Hispanic community earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with a National Minority Health Community Leader Award.

“It is not only an honor to serve as the new board chair for the nation's oldest and most established mental health organization, but electing a Latino to serve in such a capacity demonstrates the organization's leadership on improving cultural and linguistic competency and integrating it into our country's overall outlook on mental health care,” said Aguilar-Gaxiola. “The nation is at a crucial tipping point in the understanding and treatment of mental illness, and in addressing the stigma that often detours care and limits recovery.”

In addition to participating on the National Mental Health Association's board, Aguilar-Gaxiola is founding director of UC Davis' Center for Reducing Health Disparities. He guides a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to addressing inequities in health access and quality of care. The center's wide-ranging focus on health disparities includes an emphasis on improving access, detection and treatment of mental health problems within the primary care setting, which is something Aguilar-Gaxiola has worked on for many years. 

"We are privileged to have Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola's leadership and expertise at UC Davis," said Claire Pomeroy, the university's vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of UC Davis School of Medicine. "As director of our Center for Reducing Health Disparities, he brings vision and wonderful enthusiasm to the field of health care that I know is felt by everyone who has the good fortune of working with him."

Aguilar-Gaxiola's program includes a comprehensive research, education and teaching effort, plus community outreach and information dissemination. It represents a major commitment to addressing community needs that goes well beyond the traditional service role of an academic medical center. It is an effort designed not only to raise awareness and conduct critical research, but also intended to actually assist those communities whose needs have never been addressed or met by traditional health-care systems.

“Our research at UC Davis and our commitment and efforts to reducing health disparities is a perfect complement to the focus of organizations like the National Mental Health Association,” said Aguilar-Gaxiola. “By advancing innovative research, we can gain a better understanding about the causes and consequences of health care that doesn't reach everyone equally. That is especially important when people find themselves facing a health-care system that doesn't provide equal access and treatment quality for all.”

Since 1993, Aguilar-Gaxiola has been the director of the Mexican-American Prevalence and Services Survey Project. He is serving as the coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Health Organization's World Mental Health Surveys initiative, and is a member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council, the National Institute of Mental Health, and a research scientist and member of the Steering Committee of the National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse.