The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has appointed Dr. Tyra Bryant-Stephens, M.D. to Senior Director of its Center for Health Equity, reports PR Newswire.
In the new role, she will lead the development and execution of a huge plan to address the impact of healthcare disparities in Philadelphia and beyond. She will also partner closely with teams in CHOP’s Center for Healthcare Quality and Analytics along with the Healthier Together team to continue to improve the health and healthcare of not only CHOP’s patients but those in the surrounding Philadelphia community.
“Dr. Bryant-Stephens’ work at CHOP, and in the community, makes her the ideal leader to collaborate with numerous department and division leaders in prioritizing health equity as a core value in our ongoing improvement work here at CHOP,” said Madeline Bell, President, and CEO at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a news release. “We know that Dr. Bryant-Stephens is excited for the opportunity to build the Center, design and implement new initiatives to promote health equity, and provide local and national thought-leadership on issues of child health equity.”
Not only has Dr. Bryant-Stephens served as the Medical Director of CHOP’s Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) since 1997, but she is also responsible for founding the program. The innovative program uses community health workers to implement asthma management and prevention interventions in poorly resourced, underserved Philadelphia communities. Its mission is to achieve health equity for low-income minority patients as well as to reduce asthma disparities.
“Here at CHOP, we are committed to addressing health equity as part of our overall mission; however, implementing interventions that will truly reduce disparities is difficult to scale and sustain without increased funding,” continued Bell. “While initial funding and some grants enabled us to create the Center for Health Equity, achieving a deep, lasting and necessary impact needs greater resources, and we are seeking donors to help advance these important efforts.”
As a past member of the U.S. EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, Dr. Bryant-Stephens has continued to change the narrative when it comes to health equity for Black children in America.
Recently she served as a member of the Expert Panel Working Group of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and currently serves as a member of the Philadelphia Board of Health, the PDPH Racial Equity Committee for COVID-19 Testing, and PDPH COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee.
