Laura Vargas

Laura Vargas, PhD, LMSW, MPA, is a Vice-Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the Penn Injury Science Center and the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in Social Policy and Policy Analysis from Columbia University. Her past research focused on the relationship between violence and health care service access and utilization in Mexico. Currently she is researching exposure to trauma and mental health among recent Latinx immigrants in the United States. Specifically, her research highlights how exposures to violence and other traumatic events affect mental health symptoms among Latinx immigrants in the pre-, during, and immediate post-migration periods to the United States. She has also researched the interaction of security and public health policy implementation in Brazil.