Oct 26, 2021
Alison Hernandez
Nurse, Scientist, and Health Policy Staffer
Alison Hernandez was born and raised in Mexico. She received her Bachelor’s in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. In 2014, she graduated with her Master’s in Nursing. Upon graduation, she worked as a Medical-Surgical Nurse at Advocate Health Care in the Greater Chicago area. After spending some time at the bedside, she decided to pursue her PhD in Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
She is a nurse scientist turned health policy staffer on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Her journey to health policy started with her interest in helping older adults achieve their highest quality of life and focused her research on physical activity promotion for older adults with chronic health conditions. That interest is what brought her to Washington, DC, as a Health & Aging Policy Fellow (2019–2020), a program sponsored by Northwestern and Columbia University. As a Health and Aging Fellow, she worked in the U.S. House of Representatives with Congresswoman Donna E. Shalala (former Secretary of Health and Human Services under Clinton) — an experience that changed her life forever. Her experience on “the hill” made her want to channel her nursing expertise to public service and pursue work as a legislative assistant. Alison is committed to helping nurses and other allied health professionals learn how to communicate and inform policymakers.
In her free time, Dr. Hernandez enjoys doing yoga.
View Alison’s Nurses You Should Know Video here.
Amplify Nursing: Season 2 Ep 05: Donna Shalala and Alison Hernandez
How Nurses Can Influence Health Policy with Alison Hernandez, PhD, RN (HAPF Series)
Sources
The information above was sourced from Alison Hernandez and LinkedIn.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
Help us paint the internet with nursing’s diverse origin stories. Follow this Medium publication, NursesYouShouldKnow on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or @KnowNurses on Twitter to share and re-post our articles far and wide.
