Cindy Alvarez is a researcher in the Health Unit with expertise in qualitative research methods, including interviews, focus groups, literature reviews, and qualitative data analysis. Her current work focuses on COVID-19 and routine vaccination, the public health and primary care workforce, and state health policy.
Alvarez serves as a lead site visitor for a qualitative study evaluating promising practices for COVID-19 testing and vaccination in states and tribal organizations, particularly for populations that are medically or socially at disproportionate risk for COVID-19 or related adverse outcomes.
Alvarez has worked with federal, state, philanthropic, and commercial clients to study how states use Medicaid to prevent and address intimate partner violence, Medicaid hospital presumptive eligibility, vaccine delivery for children and youth, Medicaid managed care, and national efforts to surge the public health workforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alvarez has led or supported interviews and focus groups with state and federal officials, community-based organizations, managed care organizations, and primary care providers.
Before joining Mathematica in 2019, Alvarez held positions with John Snow, Inc.’s Immunization Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. She holds an M.P.H. in health policy and a B.A. in sociology and history of science, medicine, and public health from Yale University.
This mixed methods study sought to describe the extent to which family physicians in urban communities serve socially vulnerable patients and to better understand their practices, their challenges, and the structural supports that could facilitate their patient care.
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