Christina is a twenty three year public health practitioner and researcher, receiving her MPH Community Health Practice, DrPH Indigenous public health policy and management from University of Arizona, Zuckerman College of Public Heath. Her paternal family are Andean descendants (Quechua Ch’ixi) from Caja Espiritu and Huancavelica, with ties to provinces of Ayacucho and Junin, Perú. Her maternal family are Irish descent from Arizona.
Christina’s commitment to this work is through her family, connections to place, and long standing relationships within the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona and Sonora.
She leads/co-leads evaluation and practice development projects in public health, mental health, addiction, and overdose – injury prevention (CDC funded). She serves on working groups for the NCREW-GATHER collaborative network (NIH funded). She has a background in creative expression methodologies (story/poetry sharing, photovoice, digital storytelling), recently developing a public health participatory media resource (NACCHO funded). Christina is a co-instructor and preceptor for MPH students from various colleges/universities across the U.S. This work includes training, technical assistance, internship/professional development, communities of practice, ECHO model, national meeting convening, and translation and implementation science.
Christina’s primary research area is Indigenous systems alignment and data stewardship for Indigenous healing-health praxis/practice. To this end she has led cross-sector systems alignment studies with multiple tribal partners. Most recently for the Coeur d’ Alene Tribe’s Tribal Care Coordination Dashboard: Coeur Adolescent Support Team Referrals study (Systems for Action-RWJF funded). This area represents the interface/interconnection across fields, disciplines, sectors, and relationality. It originated during her tenure with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s Health Services Division, 2000 – 2019, that culminated in a dissertation titled, “Indigenous health systems: An emergent Yaqui-centered framework for public health practice” that is a guest-relative methodology, Indigenous knowledge-placed based framework for practice, and was applied to tribal public health accreditation.
Christina is an active member of the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance(Dr. S Russo Carroll) (https://indigenousdatalab.org/), Seven Directions – Whakauae Māori Health Services (Dr. A Boulton) partnership (https://www.whakauae.co.nz/). Recently, she joined the Peruvian Education, Action, and Research (PEAR) network (U Washington).
About Our Practice
The Seven Sacred Directions
Seven Directions was born from a desire to create greater connectivity across the many tribes, communities and organizations that have the health and wellness of American Indian and Alaska Native people at the heart of what they do. We are guided by the “seven directions” of practice: Integration & Holistic Wellness, Culture & Identity, Families & Communities, Respect for Sovereignty, Service, Indigenous Knowledge, and Tribal Governance.
The Seven Sacred Directions serve as an indigenous framework for presenting the strategic directions for the public health agenda.
