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"Health Equity and Aging in the Hispanic/Latino Population of the United States"

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “health equity is when everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible.  This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care.”  These obstacles are known as the social determinants of health which impact us throughout our entire life, including our elder years.  The current pandemic has in fact highlighted how important these factors are to our overall well-being and to our resilience.  This presentation will concentrate on the social determinants of health and the importance of health equity as it relates to the well-being of the elder Hispanic/Latino population of the United States.

Octavio N. Martinez, Jr. is the fifth executive director to lead the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health since its creation in 1940. Additionally, he is an associate vice president in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement and a clinical professor in the School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His academic interests include minority health, health disparities, and workforce issues. Dr. Martinz was appointed to the prestigious Task Force on COVID-19 Health Equity in 2021. The purpose of the Task Force is to infuse health equity principles into the nation’s response to the pandemic. Among other boards and committees, Dr. Martinez serves on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Preparedness and Response Board of Scientific Counselors and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Health and Medicine Division’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity.  In addition to his administrative and academic duties, he currently serves on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Governance and Financing of Graduate Medical Education and the IOM’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities.

A native Texan, Martinez has an MPH from Harvard University’s School of Public Health, an MD from Baylor College of Medicine, and an MBA and BBA in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin.

Martinez has a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University’s School of Public Health, an MD from Baylor College of Medicine, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in business administration with a concentration in finance from The University of Texas at Austin. He was Chief Resident during his psychiatric training at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and is an alumnus of The Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Martinez is a recipient of the 2015 Psychiatric Excellence Award from the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Texas’s 2015 Mental Health Professional of the Year Award, among other honors. 

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