Carmen Nevarez MD MPH

Summary

• Carmen Nevarez, MD, is a preventive medicine specialist based in Oakland, CA, with focus on public health policy and administration. She graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1978, and completed an OB-GYN internship in a transitional year at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in 1979 and completed her residency in public health and general preventive medicine at the California Department of Public Health in 1985.She served as the Sr. Vice President of External Relations and Preventive Medicine at the Public Health Institute for 25 years until her retirement in 2022. Prior to that, she served as director of the Health and Human Services Agency for Berkeley, Ca. In 2008, she created and launched Dialogue4Health.org, an online community that promotes open conversations and sharing of evidence-based strategies and discussion of community health concerns across a broad array of health issues. Over the last 35 years, by leading the National Leadership Academy for the Public's Health and related work, she has been working on strengthening community capacity to define their health concerns, build appropriate strategies and organize local responses that show measurable progress. Most recently, she has expanded her work to include effective policies and action to address Substance Use Disorder. Dr. Nevarez has contributed publications to peer-reviewed journals, including works on policy solutions for the Latino immigrant workforce and health models in Latino communities, as well as contributing to models for improving nutrition in schools and policy strategies to improve youth health and reduce teen pregnancy. Dr. Nevarez was elected President of the American Public Health Association in 2010. She continued to serve women's health needs as a clinician in underserved communities until 2018. She continues her work as a consultant and has rekindled her interest in photography.