The IVI’s Health Equity Initiative is a two-year effort aimed at advancing multi-stakeholder dialogue about best practices and opportunities for meaningful change in the valuation of health care to recognize diversity, address existing health disparities, and promote equitable access to care. In order to achieve the primary goals of the initiative, IVI scientific leadership is heading a series of activities, guided by a collaborative, expert steering group and with facilitated input from a select group of invited methods and research experts. This multidisciplinary body brings expertise in health equity and disparities, clinical comparative effectiveness and patient preference research, HEOR methods, value assessment/health technology assessment, and data collection and analytics. In addition, user communities, including payers, purchasers, and employers, will be key participants. Stakeholder communities of color – especially patients, patient advocacy, and care providers will help lead the committee in this initiative.
Committee Members
Tammy Boyd, JD, MPH
American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network
Tammy Boyd, JD, MPH
Tammy Boyd is the Director of Health Policy and Legislative Affairs with the Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI). Boyd serves as BWHI’s main point of contact for all policy and legislative matters.
Boyd is an established healthcare executive with proven expertise in government relations, political compliance, and advocacy. She has extensive experience in creating and executing federal legislative policy strategy and facilitating outreach to members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
Boyd most recently served as Managing Partner, for TKB Global Strategies, LLC /Watts Partners, where she successfully executed government affairs strategies through engagement of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), and Department of Veteran Affairs.
Along with her past roles with DaVita, Inc., and Johnson and Johnson, Boyd also served as Legislative Director for Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) where she exercised oversight over legislative activities within the office, including tax, trade, health care (Medicare, Medicaid, and Graduate Medical Education), financial services, judiciary and energy.
Boyd is a member of the American, National, and Mississippi Bar Associations and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Boyd has been featured in USA Today (04/17); Clarion Ledger (04/17); Huffington Post (03/17); and Essence Magazine (02/2017), during inaugural events for the Smithsonian National African American History & Culture Museum.
Boyd received a M.P.H. degree from Emory University School of Public Health and a Juris Doctorate degree from American University, Washington College of Law.
Vakaramoko Diaby, PhD, MSc, CRA
Otsuka
Vakaramoko Diaby, PhD, MSc, CRA
Karam Diaby currently serves as the Director, Health Economics and Value Evidence Partnership at Otsuka. Prior to joining Otsuka, Karam Diaby, PhD, MSc, CRA, was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy (POP) at the University of Florida (UF) College of Pharmacy. He also served as the Track Director for the POP online MS degree where he oversaw the development and growth of the Applied Pharmacoeconomics track.
Karam graduated with a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Population Health) at the University of Montreal (Quebec, Canada) and completed a coveted post-doctoral fellowship in health economics and decision sciences at the Programs for Assessment of Technology in Health — McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada).
Over the past 10 years, Karam has developed and honed skills in decision analytic modeling for comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of new health technologies to support value assessments. He is also skilled in the use of operations research for health care decision-making using multi-criteria decision analysis. He has some interests in the development of value assessment frameworks and the incorporation of health equity in such frameworks.
On a personal note, Karam and his best half have been married for 12 years and are blessed with two adorable boys, Moustapha (8 years old) and Imad (6 years old). Karam enjoys cooking (West African, Mediterranean, European, American, Asian cuisines), watching movies, traveling, and martial arts.
Amy Duhig, PhD
Takeda
Amy Duhig, PhD
Amy M. Duhig, PhD is Senior Director, New Product Planning, Value and Evidence Generation in U.S. Medical at Takeda. She has over 20 years of consulting, digital biotech, and biopharmaceutical company experience, both on scientific and commercial sides of the business. At Takeda, she is responsible for leading health economics and outcomes research fort he U.S. pipeline. Prior to Takeda she was Executive Director of Value Evidence at Cognoa, a digital diagnostic company for behavioral health, and was responsible for evidence generation and payer marketing. Regarding consulting, Amy was Vice president of Strategic Market Access and Intelligence at Xcenda. In this role, Amy was responsible for leading a team to deliver on U.S. market access services, payer agency, and primary research with payers, providers, and patients. Amy also led the Outcomes Research team at Xcenda. Prior to consulting, Amy held roles in health economics and outcomes research departments in mid- and large-size pharmaceutical companies, providing strategic and tactical support within a variety of therapeutic areas. Her experience includes work on U.S. and global products, small and large molecule assets, as well as specialty and orphan products. She has worked on products from Phase 1 to those late in their lifecycle.
Amy earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of South Florida. She completed her clinical internship at the University of Miami, Department of Pediatrics, Mailman Center for Child Development and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University.
Judith Flores, MD, FAAP, CHCQM
New York City Health + Hospitals/Woodhull
Judith Flores, MD, FAAP, CHCQM
Judith Flores MD is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has maintained active practice for over 30 years.
She is a native New York Puerto Rican, raised in Central Harlem, who received her primary and secondary education through the New York Catholic school system.
She attended Fordham University and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Science.
She earned her medical degree from The Mount Sinai, Icahn School of Medicine and was trained in Pediatrics and Community Medicine at The Residency Program in Social Medicine of The Montefiore, Albert Einsten School of Medicine. She is Board Certified in Pediatrics and in Health Care Quality and Management, and is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association.
Her interest in community medicine leadership and population health was well established by the time she began her career. She started working at the New York medical college program for maternal and child substance abuse use disorder and quickly moved on to positions in medical leadership both in federally qualified health centers and in the largest municipal health system in the U.S., the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation.
Her career has been a blend of executive leadership, chronic disease management, and academia. Her leadership positions have included being chairwoman for departments of ambulatory care at two municipal hospitals, Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center and Coney Island Hospitals. She also held the position of Chairwoman for the National Hispanic Medical Association.
In these positions, she has lead multiple advocacy initiatives that address health equity practice and policy and has dedicated her professional life to addressing issues of health care disparities in the communities she serves.
She remains in clinical practice, educating and mentoring physicians, advanced level practitioners, and community health workers. She has several publications and has held several academic appointments, including at New York University as a Clinical Associate Professor in the department of pediatrics.
Dr. Flores continues to be part of the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation, New York City Tests and Trace Corp, and has led the health care facility contact tracing notification team for NYC. She is now involved in COVID-19 vaccination engagement and community outreach.
Nelly Ganesan, MPH
JPMorgan Chase – Morgan Health
Nelly Ganesan, MPH
Nelly Ganesan, MPH, is Executive Director of Community Engagement and Health Equity at JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Morgan Health. She advises clients on the implications of quality-related healthcare policies, including but not limited to public and private quality reporting programs, value-based care, and payment and delivery models. Nelly has special expertise in care models focused on CMS’ Triple Aim — better care, better health, and lower costs — and the use of patient-reported outcomes. Nelly has been with the firm since 2011. Prior to joining Avalere, Nelly spent six years at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, focused on population health and hospital-based quality improvement. Nelly has an MPH in epidemiology and international health from Boston University and a BS in economics from the University of Oregon.
Karen Mancera-Cuevas, DrPH, MPH, MS
National Health Council
Karen Mancera-Cuevas, DrPH, MPH, MS
Dr. Karen Mancera-Cuevas has a professional background which includes previously working in leadership positions at academic centers emphasizing clinical, public health, and community-based participatory research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University. Additionally, she has engaged with the public in recent state-wide governmental public health efforts in Illinois. Her more than 25 years of professional experience also encompasses varied non-profit and policy-level settings. Programs developed under her leadership addressed chronic disease health disparities in diverse communities of color, specifically targeting women and children at the community-level.
She has Master’s level degrees in Public Administration (MS) and Health Policy (MPH) from DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Additionally, she earned her Doctorate of Public Health (DrPH) from Walden University and is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES). Dr. Mancera-Cuevas is Chair-Elect, Program Committee Member and Policy Reviewer for the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), a delegate to the Coalition for National Health Education Organizations (CNHEO), is Associate Editor of Progress in Community Health Partnerships (PCHP) and Regional Committee Trustee for the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE).
Dr. Mancera-Cuevas is of Colombian/Chilean descent, she enjoys spending time with her family, doing gardening, yoga and crafting in her free time. She is also a mom of four pets (a cat, dog, and two birds).
Pierluigi Mancini, PhD
Multicultural Development Institute
Pierluigi Mancini, PhD
With over 30 years of experience in culturally and linguistically responsive behavioral health treatment and prevention, Dr. Pierluigi Mancini is one of the most sought after national and international consultants and speakers on the subject of mental health and addiction. His areas of expertise are cultural and linguistic competence, immigrant behavioral health, social and racial justice, health equity, and health disparities. His book, ¡Mental! In the Trump Era – Ten Inspirational Stories About Immigrants Overcoming Addiction, Depression, and Anxiety in America, has recently been published to great reviews and is available in English and Spanish on Amazon.com.
Dr. Mancini founded Georgia’s only Latino behavioral health program in 1999 to serve the immigrant population by providing cultural and linguistically appropriate mental health and addiction treatment and prevention services in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Dr. Mancini recently led a project to train clinicians in Latin America who are taking care of the over 4 million displaced Venezuelans arriving in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Panama, and other countries.
A frequent guest of local, national, and international media, Dr. Mancini has been featured in U.S. News and World Report, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Fox TV Channel 5 Atlanta, CNN en Español, Telemundo, and Univision. Additionally, Dr. Mancini has been a favorite and frequent guest of Spanish language radio stations. As a national consultant, Dr. Mancini has provided expert content on immigrant behavioral health and cultural and linguistic competency to clients at the local, state, and federal level. As an international consultant, Dr. Mancini has provided guidance, mentorship, and internships to psychology students from the Universidad Anáhuac Mayab in Mérida, Mexico, consulted in underage drinking prevention programs in Italy, and consulted in Cuba and Kosovo. Dr. Mancini is fluent in Spanish and conversational in Italian.
Dr. Mancini’s public service announcement and documentaries addressing Latino underage drinking, suicide and prescription drugs have won a combined six (6) EMMY® awards. Dr. Mancini has been honored with the National Latina/o Psychological Association Star Vega Distinguished Service Award; the UnidosUS (NCLR) – Helen Rodriguez – Trías Award for Health; and the Mental Health America “Heroes in the Fight” Award and was named one of the 50 Most Influential Latinos in Georgia.
Dr. Mancini is the Chair of the Georgia Behavioral Health Planning and Advisory Council and serves as the Secretary/Treasurer on the Mental Health America National Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center Regional Health, the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse, and R.I. International.
Jacquelyn McRae, PharmD, MS
PhRMA
Jacquelyn McRae, PharmD, MS
Jacquelyn McRae, PharmD, MS is Director of Policy and Research at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) focused on advancing policy and research in health equity and the value of medicines. Dr. McRae graduated with a Doctor of Pharmacy from Mercer University and a Master of Science in Applied Health Economics and Outcomes Research from Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. McRae previously completed a two-year Post-Doctoral fellowship in health economics and outcomes research and population health. In addition to her responsibilities at PhRMA, Dr. McRae studies pharmaceutical health services research and intersectionality as a PhD Candidate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Eberechukwu Onukwugha, PhD, MS (March 2022 – May 2023)
University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy
Eberechuwku Onukwugha, PhD, MS
Eberechukwu Onukwugha, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and is the Executive Director of Pharmaceutical Research Computing at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She received a Bachelor of Arts in economics and French from the University at Albany, State University of New York, a Master of Science in agricultural and applied economics, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in economics (concentration: econometrics) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Dr. Onukwugha completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacoeconomics and health outcomes research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She was a recipient of the PhRMA Foundation’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship in health economics and outcomes research.
Dr. Onukwugha’s research interests are in cost analysis, health disparities, and medical decision-making by individuals and institutions. She examines the costs and health outcomes associated with health-related decisions as well as the institutional and environmental context framing individual’s health-related decisions. She studies treatment receipt, self-care following a hospital discharge, and healthcare resource utilization in the oncology and cardiovascular disease settings.
Dr. Onukwugha’s research has been published in journals such as Cancer, Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations, Ethnicity & Disease, Journal of General Internal Medicine, JCO: Clinical Cancer Informatics, PharmacoEconomics, Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Neurology, Value in Health, Medical Care, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, Journal of Oncology Practice, and Medical Decision Making. Dr. Onukwugha is an Editorial Board member for PharmacoEconomics and an Associate Editor for Ethnicity & Disease. Her research on cost-effectiveness and regression modeling has received Contributed Research Awards at international conferences sponsored by ISPOR, the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research.
Lauren Powell, PhD, MPA (March 2022 – March 2023)
Takeda Pharmaceuticals (Formerly)
Lauren Powell, PhD, MPA
Recently named among Fortune’s 40 Under 40 in Healthcare, Dr. Lauren Powell is the President & CEO of The Equitist, LLC and concurrently serves as the Vice President, US Health Equity & Community Wellness for Takeda Pharmaceuticals. In this role, she spearheads efforts to drive health equity through building trust, and investing in building generational community wellness in diverse under-resourced communities across the US.
For more than a decade, Dr. Powell has been immersed in broad and progressive leadership positions where she’s been unapologetically outspoken about racial injustices and health inequities. Her professional and personal experiences spearheading equity efforts in healthcare, state government, academia, and public health, make her a nationally sought after leader, speaker, and consultant on all things health equity.
Formerly the Director of Health Equity for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Dr. Powell was the youngest Black woman and the first with a PhD to serve in this powerful role where she led statewide strategic plans and initiatives towards pushing Virginia’s 8.5 million residents closer to health equity.
Dr. Powell has an established track record as a community-engaged, social epidemiologist with doctoral training on leveraging data for equity. She earned a Master in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical and Population Health Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Powell deeply values mentorship and community engagement. She actively seeks opportunities to help mold and encourage the next generation of leaders in health equity.
Prior to her graduate school matriculation, she held positions coordinating research studies at a number of prestigious medical institutions including: The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Public Health, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Powell has been featured on several national and international news sources and outlets including: Marie Claire, Politico, The Guardian, Huffington Post, NPR, BBC, CNBC, PBS, NewsHour, NowThis, Newsy, and Cheddar.
Jacob Quinton, MD, MSHS, FACP (March 2022 – April 2023)
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
Jacob Quinton, MD, MSHS, FACP
Dr. Jacob ‘Jake’ Quinton, MD, MSHS, FACP is a primary care internist and a medical officer for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) where he leads the equity strategy for the Patient Care Models Group (PCMG) and designs and implements value-based payment models focused on specialty care and interactions between primary care physicians and specialists. Before CMMI, Jake completed a fellowship in general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA in the National Clinician Scholars Program and was an NIH-funded health disparities researcher focused on Medicaid managed care organizations. He trained in primary care – internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital – and before entering medicine was a high school science teacher in New Orleans, LA.
Charlene Son Rigby, MBA
Global Genes
Charlene Son Rigby, MBA
Charlene Son Rigby is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Genes. She has spent her career building organizations at the intersection of data, technology, and life sciences. Charlene was previously Chief Business Officer at Fabric Genomics and held executive roles at enterprise software and genomics companies, including Oracle and Doubletwist. She started her career in neuroscience research at Roche. When Charlene’s daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease, she co-founded the STXBP1 Foundation. She is committed to finding a cure for her daughter’s disorder. Charlene’s unplanned connection between her personal life and profession has helped push forward the search for a cure for her daughter and kids like her, and given her work deeper meaning. She holds a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.
Bonnie Swenor, PhD, MPH
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Bonnie Swenor, PhD, MPH
Dr. Swenor is an epidemiologist and associate professor at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, which aims to shift the paradigm from ‘living with a disability’ to ‘thriving with a disability’ through research, education, and policy.
Dr. Swenor’s research is motivated by her personal experience with disability as she has low vision. Her work takes a data-driven approach to advancing health equity for people with disabilities. To achieve this, she focuses on three areas: (1) developing novel methods to assess and track health and healthcare inequities for people with disabilities; (2) testing innovative strategies to reduce these inequities, and (3) building approaches that promote disability inclusion in research, medicine, and higher education.
Dr. Swenor’s team developed the COVID-19 Dashboard for People with Disabilities, which compiled information on COVID-19 vaccine prioritization and registration accessibility for people with disabilities across states. Her team recently launched the University Disability Inclusion Dashboard that ranks universities across disability inclusion and accessibility metrics and the SNAP Disability Dashboard comparing the accessibility and disability-inclusion approaches of enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) across states. She co-founded the SENSE Network, an international consortium connecting sensory aging researchers, is the founder of INOVA a network that focuses on advancing equity, inclusion, and accessibility across STEM, and is cofounder of Disability Health Equity Research Network (DHERN), a new national research network to support disability health equity research, connect researchers and trainees in this area, and foster the inclusion of disabled people in these efforts. Dr. Swenor is co-host of the Included podcast, which highlights stories, news, and research that challenge stereotypes of disability and elevates the inequities that people with disabilities face. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence, and she serves as an advisor on disability equity and inclusion to multiple organizations and agencies, including co-chairing a committee focused on disability inclusion under the Advisory Committee to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director (ACD). Her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and The Lancet, and cited in leading media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time Magazine.
Ashley Valentine, MRes
Sick Cells
Ashley Valentine, MRes
Ashley is a Co-Founder and the President of Sick Cells, and the youngest sibling of her family. Her older brother and Co-Founder of Sick Cells, Marqus Valentine, had sickle cell anemia, Hgb ss. Growing up, Ashley spent much of her childhood charming hospital room attendants while Marqus was frequently hospitalized for pain crises, fever, and multiple complications from SCD. As an adult, Ashley completed her Master’s in Research Methods from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. She focused on disparities in healthcare for people with SCD in London.
Ashley became the President of Sick Cells in 2017. She was able to transition into a full-time role in 2018. Since then, Ashley and her brother have achieved great milestones with the SCD community including successfully leading the SCD community in its first-ever ICER review, building coalitions to advocate for federal legislation to be signed into law, testify at the FDA about the importance of drug development, and more.