Associate Professor of Systems and Information Engineering Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences
Bio
Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Rupa Valdez is an associate professor at the University of Virginia with joint appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Medicine. She is also a core faculty member of Global Studies and the Disability Studies Initiative. Dr. Valdez merges the disciplines of human factors engineering, health informatics, and cultural anthropology to understand and support the ways in which people manage health at home and in the community. Her research and teaching focus on underserved populations, including populations that are racial/ethnic minorities, are of low socioeconomic status or are living with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities. Her work draws heavily on community engagement and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), among others. She has testified before Congress on the topic of health equity for the disability community and received the Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) for her pioneering work in creating and developing the subdiscipline of patient ergonomics.
Among other appointments, she serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of People with Disabilities, on PCORI’s Patient Engagement Advisory Panel, and as a member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) Health Equity Expert Work Group. Dr. Valdez also currently serves as an Associate Editor for Ergonomics, the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) Open, and Human Factors in Healthcare. She has previously served on the AHRQ Director’s Roundtable on Patient Safety, as Chair of HFES Internal Affairs Division, and in multiple advisory roles for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She is the founder and president of Blue Trunk Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to making it easier for people with chronic health conditions, disabilities, and age-related conditions to travel. Dr. Valdez herself lives with multiple chronic health conditions and disabilities, which have and continue to influence her research, teaching, and advocacy. She has been quoted in publications ranging from Politico to Teen Vogue.
Awards
American Medical Informatics Association Samantha Adams Best Paper Award, Honorable Mention2022
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award2021
University of Virginia Collaborative Excellence in Public Service Award2020
University of Virginia Excellence in Public Service Award2019
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Bentzi Karsh Early Career Service Award 2018
University of Wisconsin Alumni Association Forward Under Forty Award2018
Research Interests
Human Factors Engineering
Health Systems Engineering
Consumer Health IT
Culturally Informed Design
Co-Design
Inclusive Design
Mixed Methods
Health Disparities
Community-Based Participatory Research
Selected Publications
"Structural Ableism—Essential Steps for Abolishing Disability Injustice." New England Journal of Medicine, 388(20), 1827–1829. 2023 ABSValdez, R.S., Swenor, B.K.
"Designing Mobile Health to Align with the Social Determinants of Health". Frontiers in Digital Health, 5, 1193920. 2023 ABSRogers, C.C., Jang, S.S., Tidwell, W., Shaughnessy, S., Milburn, J., Hauck, F.R., Williams, I.C., Valdez, R.S.
"Access to Healthcare Among US Adult Refugees: A Systematic Qualitative Review." Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. 2023 ABSHo, C. H., Denton, A. H., Blackstone, S. R., Saif, N., MacIntyre, K., Ozkaynak, M., Valdez, R. S
"Engaging the Disability Community in Informatics Research: Rationales and Practical Steps." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 29(11), 1989-1995. 2022. ABSValdez, R.S., Lyon, S.E., Wellbeloved-Stone, C., Collins, M., Rogers, C.C., Cantin-Garside, K.D., Fortes, D.G., Kim, C., Desai, S.S., Keim-Malpass, J., Kushalnagar, R
"Provocations for Reimagining Informatics Approaches to Health Equity." Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 31(1), 15-19. 2022. ABSValdez, R.S., Ancker, J.S., Veinot, T.C
"What Makes a Home? Designing Home Personas to Represent the Homes of Families Caring for Children with Medical Complexity." Applied Ergonomics. 2022 ABSBarton, H.J., Pflaster, E., Loganathar, S., Werner, A., Tarfa, A., Wilkins, D., Ehlenbach, M.L., Katz, B., Coller, R.J., Valdez, R.S., Werner, N.E.
"Ensuring Full Participation of People with Disabilities in an Era of Telehealth." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2021. ABSValdez, R.S., Rogers, C.C., Claypool, H., Trieshmann, L., Frye, O., Wellbeloved-Stone, C., Kushalnagar, P.
"Informatics-enabled Citizen Ccience to Advance Health Equity."Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2021. ABSValdez, R.S., Detmer, D.E., Bourne, P., Kim, K.K., Austin, R., McCollister, A., Rogers, C.C., Waters-Wick, K.C.
"Designing Consumer Health Information Technology to Support Biform and Articulation Work: A Qualitative Study of Diet and Nutrition Management as Patient Work." JMIR Human Factors. 2021. ABSRogers, C.C., Moutinho Jr, T.J., Liu, X., Valdez, R.S.
“Understanding the Experiences of Self-injurious Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Implications for Monitoring Technology Design." Journal of the American Informatics Association. 2021. ABSCantin, K., Nussbaum, M., White, S., Kim, S., Kim, C.D., Fortes, D., Valdez, R.S.
"Reimagining Community-based Research and Action in Human Factors: A Dialogue Across Disciplines." Advancing Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice through Human Systems Engineering. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group. 2019. ABSValdez, R.S., Edmunds, D.
"Citizen Science to Further Precision Medicine: From Vision to Implementation." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association Open. 2019. ABSPetersen C., Austin, R., Backonja, U., Campos, H., Chung, A., Hekler, E., Hsueh, P., Kim, K., Pho, A., Salmi, L., Valdez, R.S.
"Ethics in Health Research Using Social Media." In J. Bian, Z. He, X. Hu (Eds.), Social Web and Health Research: Benefits, Limitations, and Best Practices. Springer. 2019. ABSValdez, R. S. & Keim-Malpass, J.
"Uncovering the Invisible Patient Work System Through a Case Study of Breast Cancer Self-Management." Ergonomics, 1-16. 2018. ABSGorman, R. K., Wellbeloved-Stone, C. A., & Valdez, R. S.
“Using Participatory Action Research to Develop Community-Based Initiatives to Mitigate Challenges to Chronic Disease Management in an African American Community living in Public Housing." Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. 2018. ABSRogers, C., Johnson, J., Nueslein, B., Edmunds, D., Valdez, R. S.
"Macroergonomic factors in the Patient Work System: Examining the Context of Patients with Chronic Illness." Ergonomics, 60(1), 26-43. 2017. ABSHolden, R. J., Valdez, R. S., Schubert, C. C., Thompson, M. J., Hundt, A. S.
"Embracing Complexity: Rethinking Culturally Informed Design in Human Factors/Ergonomics and Consumer Health Informatics." International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 33, 322-332. 2017. ABSValdez, R.S., Brennan, P.F.
"From Loquacious to Reticent: Understanding Patient Health Information Communication to Guide Consumer Health IT Design." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2017. ABSValdez, R.S., Guterbock, T.M., Fitzgibbon, K., Williams, I.C., Wellbeloved-Stone, C.A., Bears, J.E., Menefee, H.K.
"Exploring Patients’ Health Information Communication Practices with Social Network Members as a Foundation for Consumer Health IT Design." International Journal of Medical Informatics, 84(5), 363-74. 2015. ABSValdez, R.S., Brennan, P.F.
"Transforming Consumer Health Informatics through a Patient Work Framework: Connecting Patients to Context." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(1), 2-10. 2015. ABSValdez, R. S., Holden, R. J., Novak, L. L., Veinot, T. C.
"Beyond Traditional Advertisements: Leveraging Facebook’s Social Structures for Research Recruitment." Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16 (10), e243. 2014. ABSValdez, R.S., Guterbock, T.M., Thompson, M.J., Reilly, J.D., Menefee, H.K., Bennici, M.S., Williams, I.C., Rexrode, D.L.
"Adapting Consumer Health IT to Enhance Usability Among Different Racial and Ethnic Groups within the United States." Health and Technology 2(4), 225-233. 2012. ABSValdez, R. S., Gibbons, M. C., Siegel, E. R., Kukafka, R., Brennan, P. F.