Hispanic Heritage Month: Daisy Morales-Campos, PhD, is a new faculty member at the San Antonio location of UTHealth Houston School of Public Health

Daisy Morales-Campos, PhD, is one of the newest faculty members to join the San Antonio location of UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, bringing a wealth of experience in public health, anthropology, and community-based participatory research. Morales-Campos came to the school from UT Austin where she was an assistant professor at the Latino Research Institute, but she said San Antonio has always been home for her.

A San Antonio native, Morales-Campos said she was raised on the west side of the city by a single mother and her grandparents, immersed in the cultural richness and resilience of her community. She planned to pursue medical school and become a doctor after graduating from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, but eventually decided medicine was not the right path for her.

When she was selected to participate in the University of Michigan Population Fellow Program and study abroad in Guatemala, Morales-Campos said she unexpectedly stumbled into something she loved.

“It was through that trip that I figured out what I wanted to do,” she said. “A medical anthropologist came and talked to us, we got to live with a Mayan family for a day, and I thought ‘Oh, this looks like something that would be interesting to do.’”

After Morales-Campos completed her bachelor’s in sociology and Spanish, she decided to pursue her newfound interest with a master's in medical anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, but still had the lingering sense that she hadn’t yet found the exact right fit for her interests.

“I knew I didn’t want to go live with a community and do ethnography,” she said. “It made more sense to me to focus on something more applied, something that could make a difference.”

At the urging of one of her professors, Morales-Campos decided to pursue public health, and enrolled in the PhD program at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. Her PhD work there laid the foundation for what would become a long-term concentration on studying health disparities, especially within Latino communities.

“As a Latina myself, with family who immigrated here, I felt a responsibility to help improve health outcomes for marginalized populations,” she said. "I also feel like I bring a unique lens to my research because of my background in medical anthropology. I try to take into account all the different parts of a person's life that impact their health."

That mission continues to drive much of Morales-Campos’ work, which has included research on cancer prevention, vaccine uptake, and community-based interventions.

Currently, she is working on a five-year research project that will investigate implementation strategies for an intervention to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates among Latino adolescents in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). While the HPV vaccine is readily available and proven to be effective, HPV cancers are still prevalent in the U.S., and Texas lags behind in HPV vaccine uptake, ranking 48^th out of the 50 states. The project aims to address low HPV vaccination rates among Latino/a adolescents in Texas.

The federally-funded grant from the National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences allows Morales-Campos’ team to collaborate with federally qualified health centers, educating providers on best practices for promoting the HPV vaccine. Her current work spans across Texas, including three Texas FQHCs: Community Health Network, Project Vida Health Center, and Spring Branch Community Health Center. Morales-Campos said her research is deeply rooted in the idea of applied science and making change that impacts the real world.

“We’re trying to create clinic-specific plans to improve vaccination rates,” she said. “The goal is to tailor the intervention to each clinic’s unique context. I want to improve the medical systems and services available to people, especially those who might not otherwise have access.”

As well as being a faculty member and researcher, Morales-Campos is a mother of four and a vocal advocate for equality and accessibility, a role that intensified with the birth of her fourth child. Her daughter was diagnosed with Down syndrome at birth, an experience that not only radically changed her personal life, but also guided her professional interests toward issues related to cognitive disabilities and advocacy for children with Down syndrome.

"It was a surprise, but I feel like my research career prepared me for advocating for her," she said.

Morales-Campos plans to expand her research to address health disparities in Latino populations and advance the understanding of how social, economic, and cultural context shapes health behaviors and outcomes. Whether she is working with local health centers or advocating for children with disabilities, Morales-Campos said her work is always ultimately about improving lives.

“I love learning people’s stories, and I like being an agent for change,” she said. “We can learn so much from stories, and I like being able to apply the lessons learned, and actually use them to make a change.”