Arturo Vargas Bustamante
Arturo Vargas Bustamante is a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and serves as UCLA LPPI’s Director of Faculty Research. He has a broad background in health policy, with specific training and expertise in health care survey research and data analysis, health care cost estimation, economic valuation and program evaluation. His research into disparities focuses on groups — primarily Latinos — that are overwhelmingly uninsured or that have poor access to health care. His work on health care in developing countries examines cross-border health care utilization, as well as health services privatization and decentralization in middle-income countries, predominantly in Latin America. Vargas Bustamante has led an LPPI policy series that focuses on increasing the Latino physician workforce in California, one of which includes California’s Physician Shortage: Brief. His research has been published in reputable health policy journals such as Health Affairs, Health Services Research, Social Science and Medicine, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, among others. The outcomes of his research have had direct policy applications, particularly since they estimate the share of disparities that can be attributed to socioeconomic and demographic factors.
He previously worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank and the California Program on Access to Care, where he was responsible for the cross-border health insurance project. Vargas Bustamante began his career in the health financing administration of the Mexican Ministry of Health. Vargas Bustamante earned a Ph.D. and M.P.P. in public policy, and an M.A. in economics from UC Berkeley. He earned his undergraduate degree in politics and public administration from El Colegio de México.
