Applications are now open for our exceptional DrPH and master’s programs—in person, online, and hybrid.

Chilean dentist Alberto Inzulza Galdames, MPH ’24, wants to improve access to health care for people in vulnerable communities.

May 16, 2024 — When Alberto Inzulza Galdames was growing up in rural Chile, the health inequities in his community became apparent to him in a very visible way: As people got older, they stopped smiling. Dental care was hard to come by in his village, which was hours away from the nearest city and, for many, such as Inzulza Galdames’ mother and grandmother, it was low on a list of pressing financial needs. When he became a dentist, he started to see bad teeth as more than just a source of pain but a symptom of the ways that lower-income people around the world are failed by health systems.

Inzulza Galdames came to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to learn more about how to improve access to health care for people like those in his community. This month, he’s graduating with a degree in global health and population and concentrations in public health leadership and humanitarian studies.

He plans to return to seeing patients in Chile, but with a broader perspective on how to advocate for their needs. Building on policy work in the Chilean government that he started prior to coming to the School, Inzulza Galdames hopes to contribute to the development of a more inclusive and equitable health care system and to promote evidence-based public health policies to enhance quality of care.

“I don’t feel I’m just a citizen of Chile now,” he said. “I feel like I’m part of something bigger.” No matter where they come from, public health professionals share the same values, he said, “Equity, dignity, justice, and human rights for everyone.”

One major ambition driving Inzulza Galdames’ work in public health is finding ways to lift up others from backgrounds like his. During Inzulza Galdames’ childhood, his family struggled financially. They were temporarily homeless when he was a teenager, and he worked as a blueberry picker to help. He still gets choked up thinking about the sacrifices his mother made for him. “She taught me the power of persistence,” he said.

Things started turning around when he was in high school and became friends with an American exchange student. This individual’s family brought Inzulza Galdames to the U.S. for a visit that included a trip to Harvard’s Cambridge campus. He dreamed of returning to Harvard to study and did so for two summer programs while he was an undergraduate and dental student at Finis Terrae University in Providencia, Chile. One of these, the Global Health Delivery Intensive, was led by the late Paul Farmer. Inzulza Galdames said the renowned global health physician and medical anthropologist inspired him to stay curious about the world and engaged with the people he serves.

Building on connections from this program, Inzulza Galdames took time while earning his degree to become an exchange student in Japan and a volunteer teacher and dentist in Nepal, where he also started a nongovernmental organization focused on promoting health education and gender equity.

But even as he traveled the world, Inzulza Galdames remained firmly rooted in his family and community. After he graduated, he became a dentist in the city of San Clemente, near where he grew up. His first patients were his mother and grandmother.