Dr. Victoria Orrego is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Communication Studies in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Dr. Orrego’s research focuses on addressing health disparities in HIV prevention and maternal health utilizing a community engaged approach. Dr. Orrego has expertise in the design of campaign messages, the employment of appropriate communication channels and sources of health information, effective applications of formative evaluation to guide campaigns, the application of communication and social influence theories, and how to segment target audiences to create tailored messaging. Dr. Orrego has worked in partnership with the University of Miami’s Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Organization, and the Socio-Medical Sciences Research Group on grant-funded research addressing organ donation, HIV prevention and substance abuse with vulnerable populations. Dr. Orrego is currently part of an interdisciplinary team on HIV prevention through early infant male circumcision in Zambia. More recently, as PI, she has conducted field research in the rural community of Santiago Atitlán over the past eight years, and completed a pilot grant, “Engaging the Capacity of Local Comadronas in Rural Guatemala: A tool for HIV prevention and Maternal Health” funded by the UM CFAR. In addition, UM CHARM & CTSI currently funds Dr. Orrego’s project, “Addressing COVID-19 misinformation and resiliency among Latinos living with HIV: Formative research guiding the Latinos Unidos microgame intervention.” On both projects, Dr. Orrego utilized a community-engaged approach, and established effective partnerships with key community stakeholders, health providers, and local staff that facilitated culturally tailored intervention content. Dr. Victoria Orrego is eager to collaborate and provide guidance on effective communication messaging and strategies that will advance novel health communication research designed to inform and support health outcomes in vulnerable communities.
