Juviza is a dedicated public health expert with 15 years of comprehensive experience in health education, research, and maternal-child health.
As a solutions-oriented thinker, Juviza is committed to driving impactful change that is grounded in health equity and social justice. Early on in her career, Juviza liaised with clinicians and care teams to identify knowledge gaps among individuals with limited health literacy, expanded a community-based medication assistance program, and facilitated reproductive health and empowerment workshops for marginalized youth.
Juviza has been recognized for her exceptional communication skills and is especially adept at helping teams, partners, and stakeholders understand the needs, barriers, and systemic challenges that marginalized groups encounter when accessing adequate care and health information. She has effectively led projects in cross-functional, matrix environments and has a wealth of experience working on high-priority deliverables for external partners, including HCA Healthcare, Pfizer, Merck and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Whether she’s crafting an essay or exploring topics for her creative nonfiction short stories, Juviza taps deeply into her cultural roots and upbringing. Her creative nonfiction work has been published in Palabritas Vol 2. Issue 1 (Harvard), The Washington Heights Memoir Project (Dominican Writers Association), and featured by the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!).
Juviza has passion for storytelling and has explored various formats, including photography, video, and collage to share powerful visual narratives. Her photo project, Haiti: Beyond Mountains and Poverty, depicting Haiti’s resilience, beauty, and magic, formed part of the 5th annual Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) Fine Arts Exhibition. The photos were subsequently selected for display at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S).
Juviza has facilitated workshops (Dominican Writers Association) using a visual storytelling lens, captured audiovisual postpartum mental health narratives of Black and Hispanic women, and had her collages featured in La Libreta, Jan 23’, Issue #6 (RoblesWrites Productions).
While working to level the playing field for marginalized communities, Juviza has become an ardent advocate of doing the same in the field of public health. Juviza is no stranger to the challenges first-generation students encounter when pursuing educational and professional development opportunities. That’s why she’s committed to helping create a wave of change by shifting the narrative of who a public health professional is.
Juviza has served as Chair of Communications for the Latino Caucus for Public Health (2020-2022), Advisory Committee Member (2020-2022) and Chair (2022- 2023) for the Nation’s Health. In 2023 she was a recipient of the 100 Hispanic Women Graduate Fellowship (100 Hispanic Women) and in 2024 she was recognized as a 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst, awarded by the Boston Congress of Public Health (BCPH).
Juviza is well-versed in social marketing principles and applies a health equity lens when creating, and transcreating, health content for ethnically diverse audiences. She presented on these themes at the 22nd Annual IHA Health Literacy Conference.
With 8 years of experience creating bilingual perinatal health education, Juviza understands that the cultural nuances, health literacy and health information fluency, and social determinants of consumers must be considered when launching any health promotion initiative.
Juviza’s dissertation work will explore the ways poor community design, inequitable food environments, and harmful housing policies contribute to chronic stress, are connected to adverse birth outcomes. Ultimately, she hopes to disrupt cycles of neighborhood disinvestment by informing policy to bring about tangible solutions that will result in long-term change and improve the health outcomes of women and birthing people of color, and their children.
Juviza is a PhD fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and the Region 2 Public Health Training Center.
