Health Disparities and Disability
Bessie Young, MD, MPH, FACP, is Associate Chair for Diversity & Inclusion for the Department of Medicine, Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, and Section Chief of Nephrology at the VA Puget Sound Health Care Center. She co-chairs the Department of Medicine’s Diversity Council and leads many of the equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts for the Department. Her research concentrates on health disparities, including evaluating risk factors for development and progression of kidney disease in African Americans, genetic testing for APOL1-associated kidney disease in African Americans, education for kidney disease and kidney replacement therapies, and evaluating the intersection of health disparities and health equity issues in medicine. She is a member of the University of Washington’s Kidney Research Institute (KRI) and the Veterans Affairs Center for Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care (COIN) and is founding director of the University of Washington Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Center for Transformational Research (UW JEDI-CTR).