Academy Adds Two New Offices to Fight Health Disparities, Inform Policy

Charles K. Francis, M.D., past President of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and incoming President of the American College of Physicians, has been hired as Director of the new Academy Office of Health Disparities. He will add new programs to the Academy???s efforts to reduce inequalities in medical care access, diagnosis, treatment and outcome across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic segments of urban populations. Dr. Francis will study and develop interventions for disparities, which exist for a range of medical conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes.

Dr. Francis is the first Rudin Scholar in Urban Health at the Academy. Jack and Susan Rudin made a generous and trailblazing commitment to the Academy in 2003 to fund up to 10 new urban health researchers over a five-year period. Dr. Francis???s research has long focused on health disparities in medically underserved, economically disadvantaged and minority communities. The New Jersey native was the Director of the Department of Medicine at Harlem Hospital Center and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University for 11 years, and led research targeting health promotion and disease prevention in Harlem and other inner-city populations.

David M. Keepnews, R.N., J.D., Ph.D., is the director of the new Academy Office of Policy Development. He will translate Academy research findings for policymakers to more effectively develop and implement health initiatives, and will identify Academy research relevant to emerging governmental policy interests. He will also improve the Academy???s capacity to respond to information requests from government. Significantly, Dr. Keepnews will develop and staff large-scale studies on key health issues, which will result in white-paper reports and policy recommendations.

Dr. Keepnews, a New York native, comes to the Academy from Seattle, where he was on the faculty of the School of Nursing at the University of Washington and held appointments in the School of Law and in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Dr. Keepnews was formerly Director of Policy for the American Nurses Association in Washington, D.C., and served as Regulatory Policy Specialist for the California Nurses Association and as an assistant regional counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Academy Board of Trustees established the Office of Policy Development upon recommendation of a committee chaired by Trustee Dr. David A. Hamburg, which spent nine months studying the Academy???s current capacity to influence health policy.

???These accomplished senior-level professionals bring expertise that I???m hoping will bridge, and advance, the multiple divisions and initiatives of the Academy,??? said Academy President Dr. Jeremiah A. Barondess. ???They will develop information about the health of urban populations that will lead to improvements.???

The New York Academy of Medicine is a non-profit institution founded in 1847 that is dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on urban populations, especially the disadvantaged.

Posted on April 8, 2004

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