Dr. Adrianna Nava
Ph.D., MPA, MSN, RN
Season 09 - Episode 03
Dr. Adrianna Nava
Ph.D., MPA, MSN, RN
Dr. Adrianna Nava is an advocate for increasing access to care for underserved populations. As a registered nurse, she witnessed firsthand how access-related disparities led to poor health outcomes, especially for racial/ethnic minority groups. In serving her patients, she saw an opportunity to contribute to decreasing Latino health disparities by building the leadership capabilities of nurses. She currently serves as the President of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) and is focused on building the leadership capacity of nurses, specifically Latino nurses, who continue to be underrepresented in nursing and health care leadership positions across the country.
Dr. Nava has a MPA’20 from Harvard University; PhD’19 in Nursing and Health Policy from the University of Massachusetts Boston; a MSN’11 in Health Leadership and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania; and a BSN’09 from Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing. She is currently a Performance Measures Research Scientist at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) in Washington, DC and a 2023-2024 Visiting Scholar at Emory Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing in Atlanta, GA. Previously, she was in a nursing leadership role as the Chief of Quality at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, IL.
For her leadership within the domains of Veteran and Latino Health, Dr. Nava has been awarded: the Top 25 Emerging Leaders of 2023 by Modern Healthcare; the 2022 American Nurses Association President's Award; the 2021 Humanitarian Award from The Hispanic Star; the 2021 President’s Award from the Latina Style Magazine; the 2020 VA Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Nursing from VA Boston Healthcare System; the 2020 U.S. Latino Leadership Fellowship from Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership; the 2017 Outstanding Alumni-Excellence in Leadership Award from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing; the 2017 NAHN’s 40 under 40 Recognition Award; the 2016-2018 PhD Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar Award; the 2014 Community Education Service Award from AARP-IL; and the 2009 Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholar Award.
Dr. Nava represented NAHN at The White House for a Nurses Appreciation Week roundtable discussion in May 2022 and at the signing of the Executive Order on Strengthening Access to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid in April 2022.
