MD – UC Irvine School of Medicine, Irvine, CA
Residency – Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Biography: Dr. Jaime La Charite, a primary care pediatrician and internist with community health sciences, urban primary care, and health services training, focuses her work on population health studies and interventions to increase positive childhood experiences and reduce and mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences, particularly through strengthening neighborhood and school supports. Other interests include promoting socioemotional development programs to address pediatric obesity, policies influencing immigrant health, primary care improvement work, and interventions to address the social determinants of health. Dr. La Charite looks forward to a career practicing primary care for patients across their lifespan combined with policy-relevant research that can improve the local ecosystem in which children and families live.  

Dr. La Charite received her Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience from Pomona College. She completed her medical degree from the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine where she participated in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC). She also obtained her Master in Public Health degree at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Community Health Sciences. In 2017, she was accepted into the Johns Hopkins Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Urban Health Primary Care Residency Program. During residency, she received a Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics to study pediatric obesity in the Latinx community.  

As a scholar in our program, Dr. La Charite is collaborating with Cedars-Sinai under the guidance of Dr. Teryl Nuckols and Dr. Shervin Rabizadeh. Dr. La Charite’s main research project is entitled, “Public spending on community investment, adverse and positive childhood experiences, and adult health,” in collaboration with primary mentors, Drs. Rebecca Dudovitz (UCLA) and Adam Schickedanz (UCLA). The overall purpose of this research study is to explore the impact of public spending on community investments (parks and recreation, public education, libraries community development and housing, and transportation) during childhood on adult health and whether exposure to adverse and positive childhood experiences partially mediate this relationship. The study aim is to identify if and how public expenditures can be leveraged to improve a child’s health trajectory by contributing to supportive childhood experiences. 

Dr. La Charite has been involved in other projects during her time in fellowship. These include leading two secondary data analyses: 1) “Specific Domains of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) Associated with Improved Adult Health: A Nationally Representative Study” and 2) “Extracurricular activities, child and parental mental health, and parental aggravation- a national cross-sectional study.” Other studies include a scoping review of prenatal interventions to prevent or mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences on the infant, a mixed method study to understand the needs and goals of parents/caregivers on their child’s out-of-school time, and a primary care intervention to introduce trauma-informed care and socioemotional learning modules to address pediatric obesity, mentored by NCSP alumna Dr. Angela Venegas. She has published two manuscripts from her work and another is under review. She also presented two abstracts at the international Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting.  

Dr. La Charite will be transitioning into the doctoral program in Health Policy and Management at UCLA in the Summer 2023. She is also a practicing internist, pediatrician, and resident preceptor at a Saban Community Clinic affiliated with Cedars-Sinai under the supervision of Dr. Armen Arshakyan.