MD – Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA
Residency – Internal Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY

Biography: Dr. Carlos Irwin A. Oronce is a general internist whose work focuses on the role of the health system in improving population health, advancing health equity, and delivering better value in care. His research interests span racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and quality of care, evaluating the impact of interventions to address health-related social needs and social determinants, and understanding the impact of value-based models of care on under resourced patient populations and communities. 

During the NCSP, Dr. Oronce worked closely with his co-primary mentor Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa (UCLA) on his main research project, “Association Between County Social Spending and Adjusted Preventable Hospitalizations by Race.” The objective of this work was to examine how different local governmental investments contributed to the health of older adults in the Medicare program and explore differential associations by race. Dr. Oronce will build on this analysis as part of his Ph.D dissertation in the Fielding School of Public Health. 

His second main project was entitled “Measuring Value in the University of California PPO Plan (UC Care): An Analysis of Low-Value Services” under the mentorship of Dr. Catherine Sarkisian of the UCLA Value-Based Care Research Consortium and in partnership with UC Office of the President’s Quality and Population Health group and the Center for Data-Driven Insights and Innovation. The objective of this work was to identify and measure the utilization of low-value services across the University of California Health system and issue a report detailing areas of improvement for the different medical campuses. Dr. Oronce built on this work as part of his Ph.D dissertation with support from the UCLA CTSI and Resources Centers for Minority Aging Research / Centers for Health Improvement of Minority Elderly pilot grant program. 

As a fellow, Dr. Oronce worked on several other projects concurrently which have culminated in seven publications that are in print or accepted for publication. These include the manuscript “The Utilization and Costs of USPSTF Grade D Services in Medicare, 2007-2016” in JGIM which received attention from several media outlets and stakeholders across industry and policy. Additionally, his manuscript “Interventions to Address Food Insecurity Among Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” has been accepted in JAMA Health Forum (in press). Dr. Oronce presented this work as a poster at the SGIM Annual Meeting in 2021 and received the Distinguished Professor of Health Equity Best Poster Award. Finally, during his last year of fellowship, Dr. Oronce co-founded the Filipinx/a/o Community Health Association with FSPH faculty Dr. Ninez Ponce and Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research to address the disparities in COVID-19 outcomes affecting the Filipinx community. With Dr. Ponce, Dr. Oronce published a Viewpoint in JAMA Health Forum entitled “U.S. Health Care Has Relied on Filipinxs While Ignoring Their Health Needs” calling for increased attention to these disparities.  

Following his NCSP fellowship, Dr. Oronce participated in the VA Advanced HSR Fellowship and the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Fellowship in the UCLA Department of Medicine. He completed his PhD in health services research and was recently hired as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA.