MARCELA GARCES, MD, MSPH

Marcela Garces is Research, Outreach and Community Health specialist for Rural Health Professions at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford. Dr. Garces earned her MSPH at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her Medical degree at the Instituto de Ciencias de la Salud CES in Colombia. She joined the NCRHP in November 2004. Her current research interest is to investigate health disparity in the context of Latinos living in the rural US. Also, she is interested in determine the cultural and social aspects that influence indigenous women’s health on their reproductive ages, in order to develop theoretical and practical frameworks that make possible a successful implementation of tailored preventive and health promotion strategies designed especially to this population. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as Coordinator and Physician in charge of the San Rafael Health Center located in a rural area of the Amazon State, and later on, as Coordinator of the Institutional Development office of the Amazon Secretary of Health from 1998 to 1999. One of the most important results of her appointment in this position was the identification of the main limiting sociocultural, economic and demographic factors that make so difficult for the western health institutions to provide health care services to the indigenous communities in the rural Colombian Amazon.