As a medical anthropologist, Dr. Szkupinski Quiroga is committed to community based participatory research, and a research focus on health disparities and the lived experience of illness among vulnerable populations as revealed through narratives. She has been engaged in Latino health research since the early 1990s with a special interest in ethnic and cultural responses to health problems. Issues her research has addressed include include the socio-psychological effects of anti-immigrant legislation, culture-centric nutrition education, chronic disease and aging, the perceptions of physician treatment by abused immigrant women, the dynamics of donor insemination practices , infertility and social support, and the association of living arrangements and dietary quality.

More recently, she has collaborated with ASU faculty to examine familial, peer and environmental influences on diet, physical activity and obesity risk. A related project collected migration and coping narratives from long-term residents of South Phoenix at a time of political and economic uncertainty.

Dr. Szkupinski Quiroga is a lead scientist of the Cultural Engagements with Nutrition, Arts and Science (CENAS) working group, which is developing, implementing and evaluating innovative curriculum. She is also leading efforts to develop culturally appropriate metrics of food environments as a more effective way of evaluating nutritional quality among Latino populations. In particular, she is interested in objective measures that identify strengths as well as points of intervention, and integrate consideration of walkability, food advertising, and other factors amenable to change.