On May 18, the Health Policy Dialogue Series featured HPM Chair Thomas LaVeist, who presented “My Journey to Understand the Causes of Health Disparities…What I Have Learned and What I Have Not.” Dayna Matthew, JD, Professor and Vice Dean University of Colorado School of Law and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellow, was the discussant. This series, which brings distinguished health policy scholars to campus, is made possible through a grant from the Jayne Koskinos Ted Giovanis Foundation for Health and Policy.
Thomas A. LaVeist, Ph.D., is chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health. He joined GW after 25 years on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he was the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy and Director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, his doctorate degree in medical sociology from the University of Michigan and postdoctoral fellowship in public health at the Michigan School of Public Health.
Dr. LaVeist has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals. In addition to his scholarly writing, Dr. LaVeist has written articles for Newsweek Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, and the Baltimore Sun. He is a highly sought after lecturer at leading universities, corporations, professional conferences and workshops. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Center for Disease Control, Department of Defense, Commonwealth Fund, Sage Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research. In 2012 he organized and hosted the International Conference on Health in the African Diaspora, which brought together health advocates from 24 countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Dr. LaVeist has provided consultation services for numerous federal agencies and healthcare organizations on minority health and cultural competency issues and racial disparities in health. His dissertation on racial disparities in infant mortality was awarded the 1989 Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award by the American Sociological Association. He is the recipient of the “Innovation Award” from the National Institutes of Health, and the “Knowledge Award” from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. In 2013 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (formally Institute of Medicine).
The second edition of his edited volume, Race, Ethnicity and Health: A Public Health Reader (Jossey-Bass Publishers) was published fall 2012. His textbook, Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Race, Ethnicity and Health in the United States, (Jossey-Bass) was published in 2005. He is also the author of The DayStar Guide to Colleges for African American Students (Stanly Kaplan/Simon and Schuster), and co-author of “8 Steps to Help Black Families Pay for College (Princeton Review/Random House). His most recent book project, Legacy of the Crossing: Slavery, Race, and Contemporary Health in the African Diaspora, is planned for publication in 2017.