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USC University of Southern California

Tyan Parker Dominguez

Teaching Professor

Health care systems expert, focusing on persistent racial/ethnic disparities in infant mortality, pre-term delivery, and low birthweight

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Rank:  Teaching Faculty

Tyan Parker Dominguez

Teaching Professor

Health care systems expert, focusing on persistent racial/ethnic disparities in infant mortality, pre-term delivery, and low birthweight

Media Contact

Biography

Tyan Parker Dominguez, PhD, MPH, MSW is the curriculum coordinator for degree programs and a teaching professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her research focuses on racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes and infant mortality, with an emphasis on racism as a social determinant of health. Parker Dominguez has served on the U.S. Secretary of Health’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality and partnered with organizations, such as March of Dimes, on initiatives related to health equity and birth outcome disparities. She is also an expert advisor to the Center for Health Equity at the University of California, San Francisco.

Parker Dominguez co-chairs the Improving Pregnancy Outcomes Committee within the American Public Health Association’s Maternal and Child Health section (APHA-MCH). She has instructed and mentored students at the master, doctoral and post-doctoral levels. In the MSW program, Parker Dominguez has taught courses in human behavior theory and lifespan development, research and evaluation, leadership, child development and social policy, spirituality, religion, and faith, and diversity. She has served as lead instructor for most of these courses, as well as chair for the MSW program. 

Parker Dominguez is a USC Center for Excellence in Teaching Faculty Fellow. She has been honored with the Hutto Patterson Foundation Distinguished Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching and Service, the APHA-MCH Section’s Young Professional of the Year Award, the California Black Women's Health Project's Women Who Dared Award, and is a co-recipient of the Council on Social Work Education’s Community Impact Award.

Education

University of California

PhD 2003

University of California at Berkeley

MPH 1996

University of California at Berkeley

MSW 1995

Rice University

BA 1993

Area of Expertise

  • Health Equity
  • Maternal and Infant Health

Industry Experience

  • Health Care - Services
  • Program Development
  • Writing and Editing
  • Research
  • Education/Learning
  • Health and Wellness

Research Interest

Health

Accomplishments

Women Who Dared Award

2024, California Black Women's Health Project

USC Center for Excellence in Teaching

Faculty Fellow

Community Impact Award

2019, Council on Social Work Education

Hutton Patterson Award for Distinguished Teaching and Service

2015, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Federal Appointee, Secretary of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality

2012, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Young Professional of the Year

2007, APHA-MCH

Articles & Publications

Braveman, P, Heck, K., Dominguez, TP, Marchi, K, Burke, W, & Holm, N (2024). African immigrants’ favorable preterm birth rates challenge genetic etiology of the Black-White disparity in preterm birth. Frontiers in Public Health, 11:1321331. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1321331

Dominguez, T.P. (2024). Person in environment and the social work profession. In M. Dorsey (Ed.). Understanding diversity in human behavior and development in the social environment. Springer Publishing.

California Department of Public Health (2023). Centering Black mothers in California: Insights into racism, health, and well-being for Black women and infants. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Public Health, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Division. (expert advisor and co-author) https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DMCAH/Pages/Health-Topics/Centering-Black-Mothers.aspx

Braveman, P & Dominguez, TP (2021). Abandon “race”. Focus on racism.  Frontiers in Public Health: Special Issue on Racism as a Public Health Crisis. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.689462

Braveman, P, Dominguez, TP, Burke, W, & the March of Dimes Scientific Consensus Workgroup (2021). Explaining the Black-White disparity in preterm birth: A consensus statement from a multi-disciplinary scientific work group convened by the March of Dimes. Frontiers in Reproductive Health: Special issue on Environmental, Clinical, and Biological Determinants of Preterm Birth and Their Effects on the Offspring. https://doi.org/10.3389/frph.2021.684207

Jackson, FM, Rashied-Henry, K, Braveman, PA, Dominguez, TP, Ramos, D, Maseru, N, Darity, W, Waddel, L, Warne, D, Legaz, G, & James, A. (2020), A prematurity collaborative's birth equity consensus statement for mothers and babies. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 24, 1231-1237