New Academy President Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, Takes Office

NEW YORK CITY, Feb 1 — Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, a national authority on healthcare and public health policy, began today as the new President of The New York Academy of Medicine. A celebration of her arrival will be held on Feb. 27 at the Academy, in which she will be welcomed by a stellar lineup of city, state, and national leaders in healthcare and government. (Read more about the event).

Dr. Boufford, a Professor of Health Policy and Management and former Dean at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, was elected last fall after a national search. During her impressive career, she served as President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation under Mayor Koch and served under President Clinton as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Her election as leader of the 159-year-old institution was unanimously approved last fall by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Dr. Boufford expects to set the specifics of her agenda by early summer after completing a strategic review of the Academy’s current activities and consulting with the Board, staff, the Academy’s elected Fellows, and critical partners in New York City. She is strongly committed to building upon the Academy’s current strengths as a world class center for urban health research domestically and internationally, and to further expanding its active engagement with the community and important organizational partners on health and healthcare challenges facing New York City, especially underserved populations.

“The Academy has a long tradition of service and can play a unique role in the city as a focal point for health professionals whose voices are often missing in important policy conversations,” Dr. Boufford said. She hopes to further engage the Fellows and attract the next generation of outstanding health professionals to the Academy, drawing upon their expertise to strengthen the institution’s ability to provide evidence-based health and medical advice to policymakers and the public. Dr. Boufford also seeks to build upon the Academy’s existing international initiatives, which include the founding of the International Society for Urban Health in 2003 and collaborations with the UK-based Royal Society of Medicine.

“Jo Ivey Boufford has for decades been an influential leader in both domestic and international healthcare and public health policy, and will be a tremendous force to lead the Academy into the future,” said Thomas Q. Morris, MD, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Her commitment to improving urban health and her global experience and perspective make her the ideal person to strengthen the Academy’s ability to effect positive change and improve the health of the disadvantaged in cities in this country and around the world.”

An Academy Trustee since 2004 and a Fellow since 1988, Dr. Boufford has strong health leadership roots in New York City, nationally, and around the world. Board-certified in pediatrics, she began her career as a medical resident in the South Bronx at the Montefiore Residency Program in Social Medicine. Throughout three decades as a physician and healthcare leader, she has focused on securing better health and greater access to the healthcare system for the disadvantaged. As President of the city Health and Hospitals Corporation from 1985-89, she oversaw the largest public hospital system in the United States. She was Director of the King’s Fund College from 1991-93, a royal charity dedicated to health and social services in London.

When working for President Clinton from 1993-97, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and then as Acting Assistant Secretary, she took part in the administration’s effort to implement national healthcare reform, something Dr. Boufford still considers critical. She was the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization during her Clinton years, and is now the Foreign Secretary for the Institute of Medicine (IOM), an appointed, four-year post in which she serves as a senior adviser on international matters to IOM President Harvey Fineberg, MD, PhD. Dr. Boufford has been a senior adviser to the Gates and Rockefeller foundations on international health workforce and health systems policy development.

Dr. Boufford has also been a leader in academia and has helped train tomorrow’s healthcare management and policy professionals. She served as Dean of New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service from 1997-2002, and is currently a Professor of Public Service, Health Policy, and Management at the Wagner School, as well as a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at NYU Medical School. This fall, she successfully launched and co-directs a new master’s program in Global Public Health, a unique collaboration of five schools at NYU. Dr. Boufford will maintain her faculty role at NYU for the remainder of the academic year and will subsequently continue her clinical appointment.

Dr. Boufford was born in Chapel Hill, NC, and raised in Atlanta. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in psychology, and earned her MD with distinction from the University of Michigan Medical School.

Founded in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit institution whose mission is to enhance the health of the public. The Academy is a leading center for urban health policy and action working to enhance the health of people living in cities worldwide through research, education, advocacy, and prevention. The Academy seeks to understand the physical and social factors of urban living that erode, and those that protect, the health of people living in cities, thereby paving the way for appropriate interventions and preventive measures to make city dwellers healthier and reduce disease prevalence. Academy foci have included detection of pediatric asthma, curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS and improving care, caring for aging populations, helping consumers access reliable health information, improving the public’s ability to cope with disasters, and health education in New York City public schools. Visit us online at www.nyam.org.

Posted on October 16, 2006

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Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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