National Minority Health Month Kickoff: Health Equity and Accountability Act Legislation Update

Lydia Isaac is the Vice President for Health Equity and Policy at the National Urban League. Dr. Isaac has a faculty appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She most recently served as the Executive Director of the RWJF funded Health Policy Research Scholars Program (HPRS) program where she was responsible for the day-to-day operations and curriculum development for the program. Previously, she was the Director of Policy and Health Systems Analysis in the Office of Policy, Planning and Strategic Data in the First Deputy Commissioner’s office at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Dr. Isaac has worked in local and state government throughout her career and in academia where she has taught classes on community health assessment and the social disparities in health. She has a bachelors’ degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, a Master of Science degree in Health and Social behavior from the Harvard School of Public Health and a doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Isaac’s research interests include advancing Health Equity through translating research into policy and practice, investigating the mechanisms that lead to racial and ethnic health disparities, the social determinants of health and the neighborhood environment and its role in health promotion.

Dr. Anita Burgos is a Senior Health Policy Advisor for a Member of the House of Representatives. Before her current role, she was a Senior Policy Analyst for the Bipartisan Policy Center. Before joining BPC, Dr. Burgos worked on health care policy for U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. Prior to doing health policy, Burgos was a research scientist at Columbia University.

Dr. Burgos obtained her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Columbia University. Her research focused on how sensory information, such as pain and touch, converges in the nervous system. While in graduate school, she led bilingual initiatives to bridge the gap between scientists and the community, and between scientists and policymakers. Burgos obtained a B.A. with honors in Biology with a minor in Creative Writing in Spanish from New York University.