Lorena Garcia is an Associate Professor of Public Health Sciences. Her research focuses on health disparities, in particular obesity and diabetes (metabolic and nutritional disorders), intimate partner violence (injuries), immigrant health and acculturation in the Latino community. A public health epidemiologist, Lorena Garcia is an expert in disease and health patterns in Latinas. She studies how diabetes, obesity and cancer have become some of the worst diseases affecting Latinas in the United States.

Garcia has also researched domestic violence among Latinos, working with the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center. Garcia has found that domestic violence for Latina women worsens when they immigrate to the United States. Recently, UC Davis was awarded a National Institute on Aging (NIA) grant to fund a Latino Aging Research Resource Center and Dr. Garcia is affiliated with this new effort.  Dr. Garcia received her doctorate in public health from the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA.