Paula Braveman, MD, MPH

Paula Braveman, MD, MPH is a Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her formal training was in Family and Community Medicine (at UCSF) and in Epidemiology (at University of California, Berkeley).  Dr. Braveman has worked as a physician at the county hospital, a neighborhood health center, and a school-based health center in San Francisco.  For over 30 years, she has studied and published extensively on health equity, health disparities, and the social determinants of health, and has worked to bring attention to these issues in the U.S. and internationally.  Her research has focused on measuring, documenting, understanding, and addressing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health, primarily in maternal and infant health.  Her research has shed light on the role of racism in racial disparities in maternal and child health.  During the 1980s she collaborated with the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization to support public health efforts in Central America.  During the 1990s she collaborated with the World Health Organization staff in Geneva to develop an initiative on equity in health in low- and middle-income countries.  She directed the research for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national commission on the social determinants of health.  Throughout her career, she has collaborated with local, state, national, and international health agencies to see rigorous research translated into practice for greater health equity. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) in 2002.