Mayra E. Alvarez, MHA

Mayra E. Alvarez, MHA, is the Associate Director for the Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services(HHS). As an OMH senior staff member, Ms. Alvarez is leading the coordination of OMH’s work related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), community health workers and promotores de salud, and language access, as well as serving as the Project Director of OMH’s Center for Linguistic and Cultural Competency in Health Care. Previously, Ms. Alvarez served as Director of Public Health Policy in the Office of Health Reform at HHS where she was responsible for coordinated and timely implementation of the public health, prevention, and health care workforce policy provisions in the ACA. Previously, Ms. Alvarez served as a Legislative Assistant for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Majority Whip of the U.S. Senate, where she advised the Senator and helped develop his legislative agenda on health issues. Before that, she served as a Legislative Assistant for then-Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis, the chair of the Health Task Force for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Ms. Alvarez began her work in Washington D.C. as a David A. Winston Health Policy Fellow in the office of then-Senator Barack Obama. She completed her graduate education at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley. She is originally from outside San Diego, CA.