Today we’d like to introduce you to Imelda Padilla-Frausto.
Hi Imelda, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey to where I am now has not always been straightforward, clear, or easy. I am a first-generation Mexican American and the first in my family to get my bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate. I was a non-traditional college student, meaning I pursued my higher education several years after completing high school. I started out at my local community college, Central New Mexico Community College, where I was pursuing engineering and later computer science when I transferred to a four-year college at the University of New Mexico.
During this time, I worked as a computer support specialist and interned as a software engineer, learning to fly and troubleshoot flight simulators at Lockheed Martin. While my internship was fun and exciting, and my pursuit in computer science would have been lucrative, I felt something was missing, and that was my desire to help others.
After my junior year in computer science and a couple of sessions with a career counselor, I decided to follow my heart, and I switched to an honors psychology program where I thought about pursuing a path in clinical psychology.
I wanted to help families like mine who had a loved one with a serious mental illness. As a young teenager, a dear family member became mentally ill with schizophrenia. Their illness was not only devastating and confusing for them but for everyone in our family. We lived in a small rural town in Hereford, Texas, where resources like the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s (NAMI) family-to-family educational support group, or family therapy, for our family, were nonexistent.
I took it upon myself to learn as much as I could about their illness, and this became the beginning of my research in mental health. During my psychology program, I had the opportunity to work on a research study that opened my eyes to a whole new approach to helping people, and that was through community mental health. In addition to providing clinical treatment for depression and anxiety, this study addressed many of the socioeconomic stressors associated with poor mental health, such as food insecurity, domestic violence, unemployment, underemployment, and gaps in childcare. This was my first introduction to the social and economic determinants of poor mental health, something I saw in my community but did not have the language to articulate. I also saw this study as an opportunity to address many of the social injustices that communities of color face.
This study eventually led me to the field of public health, specifically the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. During my master’s program, I met with the founder and late executive director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR), E. Richard Brown, and he introduced me to applied research that could help inform health policy and improve population health.
I was like a kid in a candy store and wanted to know what I needed to do to come work with him. I wanted to do the same for mental health, help inform mental health policy, increase access to care, increase prevention and early intervention to improve mental health outcomes for communities and populations.
After my master’s degree, I went to work with Dr. Brown at CHPR where I met another great mentor, Dr. Steve Wallace, who was pivotal in getting me to apply for the doctoral program at UCLA. While working on my doctorate, I continued to work at CHPR as a graduate student researcher. In the first two years of my program, colleagues and I worked on some of the first reports that documented the need (often unmet) for mental health services among California’s adult population. I wrote my dissertation on Latinos’ use of mental health services with a focus on the role of perceived discrimination and neighborhood crime. After completing my doctorate, I remained at CHPR as a research scientist, and I continue to document the need and unmet need for mental health services for specific populations of interest. As funding opportunities allow, my goal is to expand the mental health research portfolio at CHPR.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
By no means was my road smooth; much of it seemed to be unpaved with tricky and sometimes hidden potholes. I raised two children as a single mother during my academic pursuits and faced major economic challenges. Many times, I wanted to quit because the stress of juggling family, school, and work often looked insurmountable.
I also had to face and deal with my own stress-induced physical and mental health challenges along the way. Towards the end of my doctoral program, my episodic migraines became chronic and more severe, and this, in turn, exacerbated my depression and anxiety. I would later find out after I finished my doctorate that in addition to migraines, I was having cluster headaches, which are extremely painful and debilitating. What got me through many of the rough patches were my children, my biological and chosen family, and one mentor/advisor in particular, the late Dr. Wallace, who believed in me and was always in my corner.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. My research agenda primarily focuses on the structural and social determinants related to inequities in mental health, access to mental health care, and economic security. I currently lead research on mental health outcomes using data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the largest state health survey in the U.S.
I am the program director of the California Elder Economic Security Standard ™ Index (Elder Index), which highlights and addresses the hidden economic insecurity faced by many California adults ages 65 and older. I am a commissioner for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Commission, appointed by Hilda Solis, who represents District 1 on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. I’m also a co-founder of a writing group to help other first-generation doctoral students. We meet daily to provide nonjudgemental support and accountability.
I am most proud of leading the first efforts at the Center to document the need and unmet need for mental health services in California. I have written a series of policy briefs that focus on marginalized populations such as Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and immigrant groups and special topics such as suicide, COVID-19, and prevention and early intervention. I am also proud of the work we did with advocacy groups to get the California Elder Index passed into law. AB 138 requires state and local aging agencies to use the CA Elder Index to craft programs and policies that include middle-income seniors who are economically insecure.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Find someone who is doing something similar to what you want to do and ask them if they would be willing to share any guidance. Ask them how they got to where they are, what type of education or skill set helped them get to where they are, what kind of advice or lessons learned they have for someone wanting to pursue the same path. Find ways to get involved in what you want to do by volunteering, interning, or attending events in your field of interest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/about/staff/imelda-padilla-frausto
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ipadillafrausto
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/imeldapadillafrausto
- Twitter: @ipadillafrausto
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCLACHPR
- Other: https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/our-work/mental-health-program
Image Credits
Celeste Peralta
Yazmine Desanges
