Linda S. Sprague Martinez, Ph.D.
Director, UConn Health Disparities Institute
- Farmington CT UNITED STATES
Linda Sprague Martinez, Ph.D. has expertise in health equity and the social determinants of health.
Biography
Dr. Sprague Martinez has expertise in health equity and the social determinants of health; community-based participatory research (CBPR) and youth-led participatory action research (YPAR); photovoice; community assessment and mobilization; and qualitative research methods and analyses. Having formerly worked in municipal and state governance, and as an adolescent mental health provider, Dr. Sprague Martinez brings practical expertise in cross sector collaborations and resident engagement.
She was a 2017 Boston Housing Authority, Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights, Resident Empowerment Coalition, Resident Empowerment Honoree. In 2023, Dr. Sprague Martinez received the NIH HEAL Director’s Award for Community Partnerships, for her work with the HEALing Communities Study. Her research has been funded by NIH, OBSSR and PCORI, as well as by local foundations.
Areas of Expertise
Education
University of New Hampshire
B.A.
Political Science
Rivier College
M.A.
Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Brandeis University
M.A.
Social Policy
Brandeis University
Ph.D.
Social Policy
Accomplishments
Outstanding Commitment to Providing Access to Services in Communities of Color
State of New Hampshire, Department of Health and Human Services
Multicultural Service Award, Tufts University
Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Equal Educational Opportunity Committee
Resident Empowerment Honoree, Boston Housing Authority
Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights
Mentoring Award, Council of Social Work Education
Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education
2023 Society for Social Work Research Fellow
Society for Social Work Research
HEAL Director's Awardee for Community Partnership, Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative
National Institutes of Health
Honorable Mention for the Marie O. Weil Best Article Award, Journal of Community Practice
Association of Community Organizing and Social Action
Links
Media
Media Appearances
New evidence shows how discrimination shortens lives in Black communities
The Washington Post print
2026-01-26
Linda Sprague Martinez, a professor and health equity researcher who was not involved in the study, said people tend to misunderstand the type of stress that weathers a body and the interventions needed for relief.
“Stress management class is not going to solve this problem,” said Sprague Martinez, who runs the Health Disparities Institute at UConn Health in Connecticut. She called the new study’s core finding, that nearly 50 percent of the mortality gap is linked to stress, “striking.”
“This is important evidence that continues to contribute to what we know about the fact that racism drives racial inequities,” she said.
Racism was called a health threat. Then came the DEI backlash.
The Washington Post print
2024-10-11
“A lot of people are under the assumption that we live in a meritocracy, but what they don’t realize is how life chances are dictated by so many other factors,” said Linda Sprague Martinez, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and director of the Health Disparities Institute at UConn Health, adding that she, too, has had grant-funders recently challenge her use of the word racism in her work. “DEI initiatives don’t even fully level the playing fields. But if we’re not paying attention to the inequities and addressing them, they’re just going to persist.”
The looming public health challenge of long covid
The Washington Post online
2024-07-25
Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research for the VA St. Louis Health Care System and Jaime Seltzer, scientific director of #MEAction and Stanford University research scientist, discuss the ranging impacts of long covid and how health care institutions can improve in educating the public on the diagnosis. Then, Chimére L. Sweeney, founder and director of The Black Long Covid Experience and Linda Sprague Martinez, director of the Health Disparities Institute at UConn Health discuss the challenges people of color and marginalized communities face in the health care system.
In communities of color, long-covid patients are tired of being sick and neglected
The Washington Post print
2024-05-28
“People had all these things happening in their body, but they hadn’t heard the term ‘long covid’ from a provider,” said Linda Sprague Martinez, a professor and health equity researcher who has studied the impact of long covid on Black and Latino communities in Massachusetts.
As part of her research, Sprague Martinez’s team conducted 11 focus groups last year: two in English and nine total in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and Cape Verdean Creole. In the focus groups not conducted in English, she said, they found that most people had not heard of long covid before that day. The main culprit, she said: a lack of medical information in languages other than English, and language barriers at health-care facilities and online.
Experts declare Long COVID a public health crisis rife with equity issues in dire need of support, attention
WAMC - Northeast Public Radio radio
2023-02-01
The presentation also including findings from a study on equity issues inherent to Long COVID’s impact on Massachusetts.
“Some participants named racism is playing a role in the lack of available support," said Dr. Linda Sprague Martinez. "So, one example here is, yes, I feel it's because I was Haitian, when I walked into hospitals, they automatically thought I had COVID. If it was someone from another race they would be treated better. That steers me away from wanting to go back.”
To restore trust in science, make it accessible; here’s how
The Hill online
2022-07-12
American trust in medical science is waning. Less than a third of adults — just 29 percent — report having “a great deal of trust” in medical researchers, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trust. For most of our careers, but accelerating during the COVID pandemic, there has been a worrisome gap between those of us who conduct research and the public.
How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men
ProPublica online
2020-12-22
“Everyone thinks about racism as something that is personally mediated, like someone insulting me,” said Linda Sprague Martinez, a professor at Boston University’s School of Social Work who conducts community health research with adolescents and young adults. “But the way in which it’s really pervasive is how it disrupts life chances and opportunity. … These are systems that are designed for you to fail, essentially, and for you to be erased and to be maintained in a certain position in our society.”
Articles
Implementing an EHR-based Screening and Referral System to Address Social Determinants of Health in Primary Care
Medical Care2019
Social determinants affect health, yet there are few systematic clinical strategies in primary care that leverage electronic health record (EHR) automation to facilitate screening for social needs and resource referrals. An EHR-based social determinants of health (SDOH) screening and referral model, adapted from the WE CARE model for pediatrics, was implemented in urban adult primary care.
The HEALing (Helping to End Addiction Long-term SM) Communities Study:
Drug and Alcohol Dependence2020
Opioid overdose deaths remain high in the U.S. Despite having effective interventions to prevent overdose deaths, there are numerous barriers that impede their adoption. The primary aim of the HEALing Communities Study (HCS) is to determine the impact of an intervention consisting of community-engaged, data-driven selection, and implementation of an integrated set of evidence-based practices (EBPs) on reducing opioid overdose deaths.
Two communities, one highway and the fight for clean air: the role of political history in shaping community engagement and environmental health research translation
BMC Public Health2020
This paper explores strategies to engage community stakeholders in efforts to address the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP). Communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats including emissions generated by major roadways.
“Part of getting to where we are is because we have been open to change” integrating community health workers on care teams at ten Ryan White HIV/AIDS program recipient sites
BMC Public Health2021
Community Health Workers (CHWs) have long been integrated in the delivery of HIV care in middle- and low-income countries. However, less is known about CHW integration into HIV care teams in the United States (US). To date, US-based CHW integration studies have studies explored integration in the context of primary care and patient-centered medical homes.
How Is COVID-19 Impacting You? A Community-Based Photovoice Workshop
Am J Public Health2022
Have you stopped to reflect on how the pandemic has impacted you? In February 2022, staff and peer leaders from 12 demonstration sites funded by the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund and the Health Resources and Services Administration, HIV/AIDS Bureau, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part F – Special Projects of National Significance Program critically explored the question “How is COVID-19 impacting you?” as part of an applied photovoice workshop.