Ms. Norma Martí is a bilingual-bicultural (Spanish/Puerto Rican) professional with over 20 years of experience in addressing issues of Latinx/Hispanic health equity. Her focus has been on engaging and connecting this historically marginalized population with resources in health care. Before retiring in 2019 from her role with the Women’s and Children’s Health Section at the NC Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS), Ms. Martí developed outreach strategies for immigrant, refugee, low-income, and minority populations. She used evidence-based outreach strategies using social marketing principles to inform limited-English proficient, refugee, and immigrant populations about enrollment into and the benefits of the state’s public health plans. She has staffed hundreds of exhibits and health fairs within the state’s minority communities, has also worked as an English-as-a-Second-Language instructor, has conducted hundreds of grassroot presentations, and has attended national, state and local conferences to be the voice for those whose voices are not often heard or included. Ms. Martí worked in the Office of the Secretary at NC DHHS as the Latinx/Hispanic Community Liaison from June, 2020 through June, 2021 to address Latinx COVID infections and engagement of that community with educational programs to ameliorate infections across the state. She currently is engaged, part time, with an NIH study at UNCCH and Wake Forest Universities as Community Lead for the NC CEAL Latinx Community Response Team addressing COVID vaccine hesitancy.
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