America Bracho, MD, MPH, CDE

America Bracho, a recognized expert in Latino health issues and public health. She is the president and CEO of Latino Health Access, a center for health promotion and chronic disease prevention and management located in Santa Ana, California. Latino Health Access (LHA) partners with the community to bring equity and sustainable change through education, services, consciousness-raising and civic participation. LHA facilitates mechanisms of empowerment for the community through the inclusion of community health workers at all levels of the organization and as leaders of equity, wellness and change. Bracho brings more than 40 years of experience in the health-public health field and is passionate about impacting the Structural Determinants of Health in a collective, community centered, inclusive way that will not only improve the prevention and management of diseases but eliminate the root causes of inequities and create opportunities for all to thrive.

Bracho worked as a physician in Venezuela for several years before coming to the U.S. to obtain a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of Michigan. She created the first HIV outreach, counseling and testing program for the Latino community in Detroit in 1987 and was one of the founders of The Midwest Hispanic AIDS Coalition in charge of bringing HIV-related information and services to Latinos and other communities with social vulnerability in the Midwest states. As such, she participated in local, national and international strategies to respond to the HIV epidemic. Most recently and under her leadership, Latino Health Access led the COVID-19 Latino Equity Coalition and many significant efforts to respond to the COVID pandemic in the low-income Latino and immigrant communities in Orange County, California.

Bracho leads conversations at the national and international level about creating healthy places with equity and the community at the center, inviting participants to think and take action to increase the presence of communities as people with solutions and not just as people with needs. She trains others in community engagement and participation, reaching a wide variety of multicultural audiences around the U.S. and abroad, including physicians and medical students at the California University System, rural community health workers through the University of Illinois Extension in Champagne, and as a faculty member with Kaiser Permanente and  the Institute of Health Care Improvement, including training thousands of community health workers in places like San Diego; the Bronx, New York; Toledo, Ohio; Yuma, Arizona; and many more.

Bracho is a trustee at Casey Family Programs and Inatai Foundation. She is a former trustee of the Marguerite Casey Foundation. She served on the Institute of Medicine Round Table on Health Disparities and on the Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Initiative Program. She has been a consultant and valuable faculty member for several international courses in Latin America, Australia, India and Europe. She has received several awards for her contributions, including: OC Influencer for Good, California Woman of the year, The California Leadership Award, James Irvine Foundation (2008); Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree from the Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (May 2007); and Southern California Public Health Association’s Milton Roemer Award (April 2005). She has been featured in several documentaries, including the HBO Special “The Weight of the Nation,” and has a TedMed Talk on the role of patients in improving health care and their communities. Bracho is a co-author of the book, “Recruiting the heart and training the brain: the work of Latino Health Access.”