Cristina Huebner Torres

Dr. Cristina Huebner Torres is the Chief Research and Population Health Officer at Caring Health Center. With over twenty years of experience working in community-based organizations, Cristina earned her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a social epidemiologist and community healthcare leader and her career in research and public health practice aims to inform sustainable, culturally and linguistically tailored practice and policy improvements to achieve health equity. She has expertise in mixed-method community-responsive research and focuses on the social determinants of chronic disease prevention and management within community health centers. From her roles as a street ethnographer to site Principal Investigator, Dr. Huebner Torres has used her interdisciplinary training in medical anthropology, somatic studies and epidemiology to identify opportunities for inquiry, innovation and collaboration. Her work has led to the development, integration and sustainability of advancements in community health including a community Wellness Center, a community health worker team, a culturally responsive behavioral health program, integration of the arts into care delivery, a mobile COVID response unit and on-going advocacy and activism to establish a FQHC-led research collaboratory. Foundational to her work is the synergistic balance between data-driven population health and direct patient-centered quality care. She holds several leadership roles in the Medicaid BeHealthy Partnership (BHP) Accountable Care Organization (ACO), is an Adjunct Fellow with the Institute for Healthcare Delivery and Population Science (IHDPS UMMS-B) and an Affiliated Researcher with Center for Community Health Equity Research (CCHER, UMass Amherst). Cristina is Board Chair of Public Health Institute of Western MA, policy council member of the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and steering committee member of UMass Amherst SPHHS Center for Community Health Equity Research.