Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH currently serves as the chief health equity officer and senior vice president for the American Medical Association (AMA) where she focuses on embedding health equity across all the work of the AMA and leading its Center for Health Equity.

She joined the AMA in April 2019 as the association's inaugural chief health equity officer to launch AMA’s Center for Health Equity. Prior to this, Dr. Maybank served as the founding deputy commissioner for the Center for Health Equity at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Aimed at strengthening equity efforts and transforming organizational culture, the Center became a model of success recognized by NYC leadership, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. She was instrumental in infusing equity at the neighborhood level and advancing the department’s place-based approach to addressing health inequities. She also set precedence with groundbreaking work at the Office of Minority Health in the Suffolk County Department of Health Services while serving as the founding director.

Main Topics

• Dr. Maybank’s desire to be a doctor from a very young age and her journey to a career in public health (2:42)
• The intersection of media and public health and how she landed a starring role in a commercial with Doc McStuffins (8:12)
• How Dr. Maybank founded Center for Health Equity and how it led to her role at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (15:45)
• The history of health equity and how it’s evolved and the importance of properly defining terms (21:00)
• What is the AMA, Dr. Maybank’s role as the first Chief Health Equity Officer of the AMA, and the history of health equity within the association (27:34)
• The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on her early days at the AMA and how it influenced her strategies (32:42)
• Why Dr. Maybank doesn’t like the term DEI (35:51)
• An overview of key health equity policy documents produced by the AMA (40:07)
• Dr. Maybank’s key priorities, including equity action plans from different departments, working directly with health systems, emphasizing equity and innovation, and reconciling and repairing some of AMA’s harmful past (44:15)

Episode Links

• https://www.ama-assn.org/news-leadership-viewpoints/authors-news-leadership-viewpoints/aletha-maybank-md-mph

• Advancing Health Equity Strategic Plan: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-plan-embed-racial-justice-and-advance-health-equity

• Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/ama-center-health-equity/advancing-health-equity-guide-language-narrative-and-concepts-0

• In Full Health Initiative: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/ama-center-health-equity/full-health-initiative-advance-equitable-health-innovation

Connect with Aletha:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aletham/

https://twitter.com/dralethamaybank

Connect with KP:

linkedin.com/in/kaakpema-kp-yelpaala-379b269/

https://twitter.com/inonhealth

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