William Vega

Dr. William Vega is a man of many perspectives. In addition to social work, he holds appointments at USC in gerontology, psychology, family medicine, preventive medicine and psychiatry. He trained in sociology and criminology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is now an emeritus professor, and worked at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine. His research today extends to fields as disparate as economics and engineering. As he sees it, social work resides at the intersection of these crisscrossing disciplines, a unique vantage point from which practitioners and researchers can gauge and address the complex needs of society.

From studying mentally ill prisoners in California to conducting multicultural epidemiologic surveys across the nation, Vega has maintained his belief in an interdisciplinary approach to research. When he launched his career, many in the profession held the notion that a background in everything was really a background in nothing. But time has reversed that mentality, and Vega has watched with satisfaction as the field has become a model of academic and professional convergence.

A native of South Los Angeles, Vega developed an early interest in “society’s backwaters,” mostly minority communities with high rates of deviance and little hope of social mobility. Few studies had focused on these populations, so he set about conducting massive-scale epidemiologic studies on adolescents and substance abuse, pregnant women and drug use, and rates of mental illness among Hispanics in California.

Vega was one of the first researchers to show that the process of adapting to American society puts Mexican immigrants at much greater risk of developing mental disorders, and that living in the United States significantly increases the risk of developing drug addictions among Mexican women. Vega believes the cause of these problems is a breakdown in traditional conservative values when immigrants settle down in the United States, with families splitting apart and generational relationships changing. His research has redefined the field, and he has been listed among the most-cited researchers in social science literature worldwide during the past 20 years.
In recent years, he has focused less on documenting problems and more on solving them, bringing his polymath perspective to bear on clinical issues, such as extending quality care to traditionally underserved minority and aging populations. “I think it’s time for a revolution to take place,” he says. “This is the great challenge we’re facing right now, to make these things affordable, accessible and effective.”

Vega serves as executive director of the USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging, a research center based at the USC School of Social Work that seeks to improve care for aging minority groups. He also mentors like-minded students and junior faculty, and counts this role among his most important. He tries to involve students in all processes of research, “from A to Z, so they understand how all of it works,” he says. “It’s an apprentice business. You can’t get it from courses alone.”