Dr. Rebecca Palacios

Biography

Rebecca Palacios, Ph.D., is a Health Psychologist and Associate Professor of Public Health.  Dr. Palacios has 20 years of experience conducting public health research along the U.S./Mexico border.  Her work in the past eight years has primarily focused on developing culturally relevant cancer education to address cancer health disparities in the border Hispanic population.  As the Outreach Core Lead for the NMSU-FHCRC U54 Partnership over the past six years, her team has provided cancer and screening education to over 20,000 residents and facilitated free screening opportunities to hundreds.  Most recently, her research has assessed the needs and communication patterns of Hispanic mothers diagnosed with cancer and their school-age children.  Currently, Dr. Palacios is testing the efficacy of Conexiones, a cancer education program for diagnosed Hispanic mothers, in the first clinical trial at NMSU. Currently Dr. has two large research projects: The first from the National Institutes of Health, NMSU/Fred Hutch U54 Partnership for the Advancement of Cancer Research U54 CA 132383 (NMSU) and U54 CA132381 (Fred Hutch) that is focused on testing the Efficacy of the Culturally-Adapted Conexiones Program for Hispanic Mothers Diagnosed with Cancer; The second also from the National Institutes of Health, U54 Grant Partnership for the Advancement of Cancer Research, a collaboration between NMSU and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center,  a five-year grant on which Dr. Palacios serves as the NMSU Outreach Core Lead for $1,010,000.