Breena Taira, MD, MPH, CPH, FACEP
Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine - David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Director of Research - Dept. of Emergency Medicine, Director of Social Medicine - Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, U.S. Director, Project SEMILLA
About
Dr. Taira is a Health Sciences Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and the Director of Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Olive View- UCLA Medical Center. Her research domestically focuses on language access for limited English proficiency patients and interventions to improve care for limited health literacy patients as a means to eliminate health disparities. Globally, Dr. Taira’s work has helped to quantify emergency and surgical capacity in limited resource settings as a member of the WHO’s Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (GIEESC). She is the U.S. Director of Project SEMILLA, a collaboration of U.S. and Nicaraguan health care professionals aimed at improving emergency health care capacity in Latin America. The group has developed and implemented multiple open-access, language and resource appropriate curricula for Central American health care providers and given free trainings to over 500 Nicaraguan health care professionals. Dr. Taira serves as the Lead Ambassador to Nicaragua for the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and was named an honorary professor of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN), León.
Research Interests: Language access, health literacy, Emergency Care in Latin America, Emergency Systems Development
Affiliations: www.projectsemilla.org