Cynthia Gómez

Cynthia Ann Gómez (born September 9, 1958) is an American psychologist who works in public health. She is known for her work in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, health care access and health equity for minority individuals and committees.

Life and education Cynthia Gómez is a third generation Mexican American. She has advocated for the improvement of health for these underserved groups, which include imprisoned women, gay men, lesbian women, and people of color, in ways such as contacting and advising groups that work to help them. This award, given every year to psychologists for their extraordinary work, was given to Gómez for her work on HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as for advocating for underserved groups and communities when it comes to healthcare. Furthermore, she also was part of the first California Public Health Advisory Council and the first California Office of Health Equity Advisory Committee, in 2007 and 2013 respectively.

In 1997, after her time working as a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, she began working there as an assistant professor at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), and in 2002 became the co-director of CAPS until she left in 2006 to create the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University.

Health Equity Institute Gómez founded the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University in 2006. Her work has focused on gender, culture and sexual health, the development of prevention interventions and the application of science to community practice. The organization's guiding principles are: equality and justice framework; multi-disciplinary approaches; community-scientist collaboration; and translational, implementation and effectiveness research.

The organization seeks to eliminate the preventable disparities in health, especially those caused by political carelessness and socioeconomic status. Likewise, Dr. Gómez and the rest of the organization utilize psychology, anthropology, biology, sociology, media, medicine, political policy, economics, and ethics in order to study the mechanisms that lead to inequalities and injustice in order to help people cope with those risks and lobby for political policies beneficial for social justice. By working with communities, health departments, institutions, and scientist the studies yield more complete answers to complicated issues. Lastly, Dr. Gómez focuses on closing the gap between just prevention techniques and effective, well established treatment practices.

Projects that the organization tackles include adding a community garden program to a local elementary school in a predominantly black neighborhood. This way the children can have fresh fruits and vegetables that they are lacking.

Selected publications The most cited publications by Gomez to date are:

Gómez, C. A., & Marín, B. V. (1996). Gender, culture, and power: Barriers to HIV‐prevention strategies for women. The Journal of Sex Research, 33(4), 355–362 Parsons, J. T., Schrimshaw, E. W., Wolitski, R. J., Halkitis, P. N., Purcell, D. W., Hoff, C. C., & Gómez, C. A. (2005). Sexual harm reduction practices of HIV-seropositive gay and bisexual men: serosorting, strategic positioning, and withdrawal before ejaculation. AIDS (London, England), 19 Suppl 1, S13–S2 Courtenay-Quirk, C., Wolitski, R. J., Parsons, J. T., Gómez, C. A., & Seropositive Urban Men's Study Team (2006). Is HIV/AIDS stigma dividing the gay community? Perceptions of HIV-positive men who have sex with men. AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education, 18(1), 56–67 Marín, B. V., Tschann, J. M., Gómez, C. A., & Kegeles, S. M. (1993). Acculturation and gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors:Hispanic vs non-Hispanic white unmarried adults. American journal of public health, 83(12), 1759–1761 Vanoss Marín, B., Coyle, K. K., Gómez, C. A., Carvajal, S. C., & Kirby, D. B. (2000). Older boyfriends and girlfriends increase risk of sexual initiation in young adolescents. The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 27(6), 409–418 Gómez, C. A., Kleinman, D. V., Pronk, N., Wrenn Gordon, G. L., Ochiai, E., Blakey, C., Johnson, A., & Brewer, K. H. (2021). Addressing Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health Through Healthy People 2030. Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP, 27(Suppl 6), S249–S257