About

Dr. Myriam Lucia Vega Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her practice focuses on general medical dermatology and cosmetic dermatology, with a particular interest in ethnic skin, tropical dermatology, and skin cancer prevention. She earned her medical degree from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, where she also completed her first residency in dermatology. She moved to the United States, obtained a master’s degree in public health from the University of Arizona, and completed a dermatology residency at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Dr. Vega Gonzalez is board-certified in dermatology by the American Board of Dermatology. She is involved in patient care across a broad age range, from children to older adults, and is fluent in both Spanish and English. Her clinical approach emphasizes thorough examination, patient education, and respectful communication. She is recognized for her professionalism, knowledge, and attentive bedside manner, and she has received positive patient ratings for her care and expertise.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Applied psychology
• Nursing
• Medical education
• Internal medicine
• Psychiatry
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Measuring Indigenous Cultural Strengths: a Systematic Review of a Decade of Approaches

  Prevention Science · 2026-03-01

  articleOpen access

  Indigenous Peoples experience severe health inequities rooted in experiences of colonization. Calls for strengths-based, culturally grounded research and practice to redress these harms continue to grow. This systematic review assesses how Indigenous "culture" has been quantified in research across the globe over a 10-year span. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched four databases (2013-2023) for peer-reviewed, English-language articles featuring quantitative measures of Indigenous culture as a positive/protective factor. Data were extracted via a double coding system to assess cultural domains, operationalization strategies, and sociodemographic characteristics of reviewed studies. We reviewed 279 records and identified 461 measures, 289 of which were unique. The most frequently coded cultural domains were connectivity/belonging (47%) and traditional medicine/spirituality (47%), followed by cultural identity (43%) and Indigenous language (36%). Measures most often operationalized culture through behaviors (61%) and beliefs/values (41%). Only 56% of studies reported any psychometric evaluation. Most studies centered on North American contexts and human health outcomes. Efforts to measure Indigenous culture are increasing but remain fragmented, lacking consensus in domain definitions and operational approaches. Results suggest a need for resources to appropriately grapple with and build momentum around ethically and logistically complicated issues surrounding Indigenous cultural measures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Development and validation of the American Indian Multimedia Stimulus (AIMS) set for measuring cultural identity responding.

  Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology · 2025-06-16 · 1 citations

  article

  OBJECTIVES: Traditional cultural connection is an established protective factor in American Indian (AI) health research. Measurement of traditional cultural connection is primarily survey-based, limiting the ability to delineate underlying processes that may be important for advancing culturally grounded mental health prevention and intervention efforts. This study aimed to establish and validate a stimulus set to probe cultural identity and provide a framework for similar development in diverse cultures. METHODS: The sample included 194 self-identified AI participants to view cultural and comparison stimuli across three media types (i.e., audio, video, and pictures). Participants rated each stimulus for arousal, valence, identity relevance, and cultural typicality. RESULTS: s < .001). CONCLUSIONS: These findings underline the potential of the devised stimulus set to effectively measure cultural connection in a heterogeneous AI population and offer a framework for broad cross-cultural application in future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• “Someday, I'll be an ancestor:” Understanding indigenous intergenerational connectedness through qualitative research to inform measure development

  American Journal of Community Psychology · 2025-03-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Intergenerational connectedness broadly encompasses relations among humans, lands, and all living and spiritual beings, and functions as an important part of Indigenous well-being. Many public health campaigns and interventions aim to promote connectedness to support holistic wellness and reduce health inequities. Currently, however, there are no measurement tools to assess intergenerational connectedness to support culturally grounded research and program evaluation. The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand and describe Indigenous intergenerational connectedness as part of a larger community-based participatory research study to develop a measure of Indigenous intergenerational connectedness. We convened a community advisory board and an Indigenous measurement development group to steer the project. We conducted N = 23 interviews with 21 Indigenous participants to learn about intergenerational connectedness. An inductive, thematic analysis yielded three primary themes: (1) dimensions of intergenerational connectedness, (2) facilitators of intergenerational connectedness, and (3) qualities and outcomes of intergenerational connectedness. These findings highlight the profound importance of intergenerational connectedness for Indigenous communities and its role in promoting health, mental health, and well-being. This study adds to the growing field of American Indian/Alaska Native strengths-based public health and mental health research promoting Indigenous values, worldviews, cosmologies, and epistemologies to promote healthy, thriving Indigenous communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Planting the seed: using research as a tool to revitalize puberty ceremonies in Anishinaabe communities

  Qualitative Research Journal · 2024-10-09 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Purpose –: The purpose of this work is to honor the wisdoms of Anishinaabe Elders, community and culture by interweaving these teachings with my own (first author) Anishinaabe experiences and a research project. Ceremonies are an important health practice for Anishinaabe people. This project aimed to gain a clearer conceptualization of the protective role of Anishinaabe puberty ceremonies on health in adolescence and across the lifespan. Design/methodology/approach –: Spiritual offerings guided this project at every stage including inviting Elders and community members into shared spaces of storytelling and teaching elicitation and grounding me as I carefully adopted the use of a western tool (research) in sacred community spaces. Elders were invited to share their experiences and perspectives. Three community members engaged with the interview transcripts on their own before coming together to discuss themes, patterns and insights that arose for them. This group coding discussion constructed the structural foundation of the findings. Findings –: An Anishinaabe perspective on youth development emerged. Key aspects of this model included a foundation of ceremonial experiences that spiritually prepares a child for adulthood and impending life's challenges. As one transitions into adulthood, they accept the responsibilities of being caretakers of their families and communities and gain new tools to contribute to Anishinaabe society. Ideally, this society prioritizes Anishinaabe spirituality, language and way of life. Originality/value –: Frameworks of health, grounded in unique community wisdoms and worldviews, are imperative to repair spiritual and community relationships damaged in a history of colonialism. An Anishinaabe perspective on youth development may shed light on shared Indigenous experiences of cultural restoration and continuity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Erratum to “Striatal hypoactivation during monetary loss anticipation in individuals with substance use disorders in a heterogenous urban American Indian sample” [Drug Alcohol Depend. 246 (2023) 109852]

  Drug and Alcohol Dependence · 2023-10-26

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Conceptualizing Indigenous strengths-based health and wellness research using group concept mapping

  Archives of Public Health · 2023 · 38 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science

  BACKGROUND: In recent years public health research has shifted to more strengths or asset-based approaches to health research but there is little understanding of what this concept means to Indigenous researchers. Therefore our purpose was to define an Indigenous strengths-based approach to health and well-being research. METHODS: Using Group Concept Mapping, Indigenous health researchers (N = 27) participated in three-phases. Phase 1: Participants provided 218 unique responses to the focus prompt "Indigenous Strengths-Based Health and Wellness Research…" Redundancies and irrelevant statements were removed using content analysis, resulting in a final set of 94 statements. Phase 2: Participants sorted statements into groupings and named these groupings. Participants rated each statement based on importance using a 4-point scale. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to create clusters based on how statements were grouped by participants. Phase 3: Two virtual meetings were held to share and invite researchers to collaboratively interpret results. RESULTS: A six-cluster map representing the meaning of Indigenous strengths-based health and wellness research was created. Results of mean rating analysis showed all six clusters were rated on average as moderately important. CONCLUSIONS: The definition of Indigenous strengths-based health research, created through collaboration with leading AI/AN health researchers, centers Indigenous knowledges and cultures while shifting the research narrative from one of illness to one of flourishing and relationality. This framework offers actionable steps to researchers, public health practitioners, funders, and institutions to promote relational, strengths-based research that has the potential to promote Indigenous health and wellness at individual, family, community, and population levels.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Community Engagement and Giving Back among North American Indigenous Youth

  Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship · 2023-02-27 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  “Volunteer participation” refers to free engagement in activities that benefit someone or something else. Volunteering can produce many benefits for individuals and communities. However, current research examining volunteer participation often excludes diverse viewpoints on what constitutes volunteering, particularly the perspectives of North American Indigenous youth. This oversight may result from researchers’ conceptualization and measurement of volunteering from a Western perspective. Utilizing data from the Healing Pathways (HP) project, a longitudinal, community-based participatory study in partnership with eight Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada, we provide a detailed description of volunteer participation and community and cultural engagement. Overall, we employ a community cultural wealth lens to emphasize the various strengths and sources of resilience that these communities possess. At the same time, we encourage scholars and the wider society to broaden their views of volunteering, community involvement, and giving back.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Indigenous Elders' Conceptualization of Wellbeing: An Anishinaabe Worldview Perspective

  International Journal of Indigenous Health · 2023-07-13 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Language and cultural revitalization are vital in developing the self-healing capacity of Indigenous Peoples. This study emphasized the perspective of 1st language speaking Elders, our knowledge keepers and community leaders, to critically examine what it means to be well for one Indigenous Nation in the Midwest. Semi-structured interviews with Elders were administered in the Anishinaabe language by fluent second language speakers. The interviews were transcribed in Anishinaabe and translated into English with the guidance of the Elders. The Anishinaabe and English transcripts were used simultaneously in analysis. The conceptualization of wellbeing for these Elders was a complex and interrelated system grounded in spiritual connectedness and guided by Anishinaabe language and ways of life. The results broaden the perspectives available on Indigenous wellbeing and are important to consider as we study culture as healing and implement cultural-based health programs within Indigenous communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Striatal hypoactivation during monetary loss anticipation in individuals with substance use disorders in a heterogenous urban American Indian sample

  Drug and Alcohol Dependence · 2023-03-23 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Research suggests that disproportionate exposure to risk factors places American Indian (AI) peoples at higher risk for substance use disorders (SUD). Although SUD is linked to striatal prioritization of drug rewards over other appetitive stimuli, there are gaps in the literature related to the investigation of aversive valuation processing, and inclusion of AI samples. To address these gaps, this study compared striatal anticipatory gain and loss processing between AI-identified with SUD (SUD+; n = 52) and without SUD (SUD-; n = 35) groups from the Tulsa 1000 study who completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results indicated that striatal activations in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), caudate, and putamen were greatest for anticipating gains (ps < 0.001) but showed no group differences. In contrast to gains, the SUD+ exhibited lower NAcc (p = .01, d =0.53) and putamen (p = .04, d =0.40) activation to anticipating large losses than the comparison group. Within SUD+ , lower striatal responses during loss anticipations were associated with slower MID reaction times (NAcc: r = -0.43; putamen: r = -0.35) during loss trials. This is among the first imaging studies to examine underlying neural mechanisms associated with SUD within AIs. Attenuated loss processing provides initial evidence of a potential mechanism wherein blunted prediction of aversive consequences may be a defining feature of SUD that can inform future prevention and intervention targets.

  PublisherDOI

• A longitudinal study of positive mental health and coping among Indigenous adults with type 2 diabetes

  Anxiety Stress & Coping · 2022-05-19

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Indigenous Peoples and scholars call for strengths-based approaches to research inclusive of Indigenous resiliency and positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine positive mental health for Indigenous adults with type 2 diabetes and to determine if positive mental health is linked to community connectedness (a coping resource) and active coping (a coping response). METHODS: Participants (N = 194 at baseline) were randomly selected from clinical records, at least 18 years old with a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, and self-identified as American Indian. RESULTS: Latent growth curve models revealed that average positive mental health was predicted to decrease over the four waves of the study, although not for participants with above-average active coping at baseline. Community connectedness at baseline was associated with higher initial levels of positive mental health. Within-person change in active coping and community connectedness were both associated with increases in positive mental health. CONCLUSION: This study aligns with previous research demonstrating that coping can influence health outcomes, and furthers the stress process literature by showing that active coping and community connectedness can impact positive mental health for Indigenous adults with Type 2 Diabetes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Melissa L. Walls

  Johns Hopkins University

  16 shared

• Kelley J. Sittner

  7 shared

• Kaley A. Herman

  Johns Hopkins University

  6 shared

• Jessica H. L. Elm

  4 shared

• Jessica Ullrich

  Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg

  4 shared

• Evan J. White

  4 shared

• Milton L. Wainberg

  Columbia University Irving Medical Center

  3 shared

• Jennifer J. Mootz

  Columbia University

  3 shared

Education

• M.D.

  Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

• Other

  University of Arizona

• Other

  Thomas Jefferson University