Michael McGinnis

Michael McGinnis is a physician, epidemiologist, and long-time contributor to national and international health programs and policy. An elected Member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, he has since 2005 also served as IOM Senior Scholar and Executive Director of the IOM Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care. He founded and stewards the IOM’s Learning Health System Initiative, and, in prior posts, also served as founding leader for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Health Group, the World Bank/European Commission’s Task Force for Health Reconstruction in Bosnia, and, in the U.S. government, the Office of Research Integrity, the Nutrition Policy Board, and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. In the latter post, he held continuous policy responsibilities for prevention through four Administrations (Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton), during which he conceived and launched a number of initiatives of ongoing policy importance, including the Healthy People national goals and objectives, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and development of the Ten Essential Services of Public Health. At RWJF, he founded the Health & Society Scholars program, the Young Epidemiology Scholars program, and the Active Living family of programs. Early in his career he served in India as epidemiologist and State Director for the World Health Organization’s Smallpox Eradication Program. Widely published, he has made foundational contributions to understanding the basic determinants of health (e.g. “Actual Causes of Death”, JAMA 270:18 [1993] and “The Case for More Active Policy Attention to Health Promotion”, Health Affairs 21:2 [2002]). National leadership awards include the Arthur Flemming Award, the Distinguished Service Award for public health leadership, the Health Leader of the Year Award, and the Public Health Hero Award. He has held visiting or adjunct professorships at George Washington, UCLA, Princeton, and Duke Universities. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, the UCLA School of Medicine, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was the graduating commencement speaker at each.

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