Dr. Aida Giachello

Aida Luz Maisonet Giachello is an educator and a writer and uses research to address social justice issues in the areas of health and human services. As a research professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Giachello focuses on social and racial health disparities, particularly among Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans; chronic diseases; women's health; tobacco control and prevention.

In 1993, she established the Midwest Latino Health Research, Training and Policy Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), where she conducted health disparities research on diabetes, asthma, cancer, injury prevention, occupational health, maternal and child health with a cross-cultural focus. She also trained Latino/minority undergraduates, junior faculty and junior investigators in research methodologies and engaged in policy work emerging from the research findings. There she also developed community curricula and toolkits to train professionals and community health workers (health promoters) across the United States, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, Mexico and along the U.S.-Mexico borders.

Before retiring from the UIC in 2010, she provided leadership to multiple research projects including serving as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention national Center of Excellence for the Elimination of Disparities (CEED). Dr. Giachello visited over 13 countries in Latin America studying health care reform policies and identifying models that can be transferred to the US for the Hispanic/Latino populations in the areas of health promotion and disease prevention and the management and control of chronic diseases. She has been appointed by government officials at the national and local levels to numerous committees, including Vice-Chair of the Minority Health Committee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In addition to Dr. Giachello’ s research background, she has been trained as a community organizer and perceives herself as an agent of social change advocating on behalf of racial and ethnic minorities, women as a group, the poor and the elderly. Dr. Giachello has been instrumental in forming numerous health and human services organizations locally, regionally and nationally, such as the Latino Alzheimer and Memory Loss Organization, the Hispanic Health Alliance, the Midwest Hispanic AIDS Coalition, the National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention and Control, the National Latino Institute for Reproductive Health, the National Latino Tobacco Control Network, among others.

Dr. Giachello has presented her work at national and international conferences and has published in health policy journals. For over 30 years of local, national and international work and achievements, she has received numerous recognitions such as in 2005, she was named as one of twenty-five most influential Hispanics/Latinos in America by TIME Magazine. Dr. Giachello's life and work were also featured in the 2009 book titled: Social Workers Changing the World.