Dr. Zayas-Ríos is the Program Manager at the Hispanic Latino Behavioral Health Center of Excellence (H/LBH CoE), an educational research center focused on bringing training and technical assistance to healthcare professionals that serves Hispanic and Latine communities to enhance the access to care and health services in Puerto Rico and United States. As a Behavioral Health Consultant and a Health Educator Specialist, she works integrating physical and mental to improve the communities to improve their health. She completed a Doctorate in Behavioral Health in Arizona State University and now she is working in the field of enhancing the quality of behavioral and clinical healthcare services in primary care settings and in the public health field. She also completed a master's degree in public health education at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, with ample experience in research and evaluating public health initiatives, using modern and relevant statistical methods for analysis of data for the health promotion and health education approach. In the past years, she collaborated with an experienced team of researchers and mentors with expertise in developing, monitoring, and evaluating health promotion initiatives in cancer, HCV, STD/HIV, diabetes, alcohol, violence prevention, and environmental health topics.
She worked with quality improvement project organizations by implementing and evaluating federal funded projects that seek the improvement of immunization rates among older adults in Puerto Rico in collaboration with the Department of Health of Puerto Rico. In the past 5 years, she developed and managed training activities as Public Health Educator, directed to physicians and public health workers focused on the use of the Electronic Vital Record Registry of the Demographic Registry, Puerto Rico Department of Health.