Yessenia Cervantes-Vazquez is a bilingual Lead Community Health Worker (LCHW) in the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention team (known as Rush Generations) within the Social Work and Community Health Department at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. In this role, Yessenia provides direct patient and community member chronic disease self-management health education and social support resource connection. Yessenia also collaborates with various community partners to implement evidence-based programs (EBP) in their community and to train and support new facilitators. Yessenia is a Master Trainer of SMRC evidence-based programs. She is also a member of the Rush Immigrant Health Working Group and a CHW trainer with the Center for Health and Social Care Integration (CHASCI) at Rush. Most recently, Yessenia has become a trainer for the Mental Health First Aid adult program from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

Yessenia began her career as a CHW with Alivio Medical Center in Chicago thanks to her years of work as a Parent Volunteer in the Chicago Public Schools. Yessenia obtained her AA from Harold Washington College in Chicago in 2012, before being granted DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). She completed the Community Health Worker Certificate Program at Malcolm X College in Chicago in 2022, and she was one of the collaborators for the Spanish Vaccine Ambassador Course developed in 2021 currently offered at Malcolm X Community College.