Dr. April Joy Damian is an epidemiologist, health services researcher, and classically trained public health professional with expertise in health equity, social determinants of health, psychiatric epidemiology, and mixed methods. She currently serves as the Vice President and Director of the Weitzman Institute, a research, education, and policy center dedicated to quality improvement and primary care transformation, with a particularly focus on vulnerable populations. Dr. Damian concurrently serves as a Senior Scholar for Health Equity at AcademyHealth, and holds faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Wesleyan University. She provides thought leadership on numerous national committees, including as an appointed Member of the National Academies Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Forum for Children's Well-Being, Member of the Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy (CAPP) and Membership Committee at AcademyHealth, and inaugural Vice-Chair of the Health Equity/Patient Reported Outcomes/Community Engagement Committee of NIH's RECOVER initiative. Dr. Damian previously served as the Director of Quality Innovation at the National Quality Forum (NQF), where she spearheaded the expansion of NQF’s portfolio on social determinants of health quality measures, and co-led the NQF Measure Incubator®, an innovative effort that facilitates efficient measure development and testing through collaboration and partnership, and addresses important aspects of care for which quality measures are underdeveloped or non-existent. 

Dr. Damian completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Masters in Medical Sciences at Harvard Medical School. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelors of Arts in Ethnic Studies, Highest Honors. She has received numerous recognitions in honor of her role as a social change agent, including the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Community Well-Being Warrior Award, and an honorarium from the University of Delaware. 

Authored by April Joy Damian, Ph.D., M.Sc.

Blog Post

Conducting Health Equity Research During COVID: Course Correcting Future Multi-Site Research

The final post in our Weitzman Institute blog series on conducting health equity research during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights lessons learned in a national, multi-site study involving the implementation of a novel intervention in Federally Qualified Health Centers.
Blog Post

Conducting Health Equity Research During COVID: Leveraging Partnerships to Improve Health Literacy

This third post in our Weitzman Institute blog series on conducting health equity research during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights research-related challenges and opportunities in working with community-based organizations and local government agencies.
Blog Post

Challenges and Opportunities for Authentic Patient Engagement in a Virtual Research Environment

The second post in our Weitzman Institute blog series on conducting health equity research during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights challenges and lessons learned in building rapport and authentically engaging with patients in a virtual research environment.
Blog Post

Conducting Health Equity Research Beyond COVID-19

This post is the first in the Health Equity Research Beyond COVID-19 Series, which highlights lessons learned when conducting research with marginalized and vulnerable communities during the pandemic, and implications for how to ensure the way in which we go about doing research is patient- and community-affirming.
Posted By April Joy Damian, Ph.D., M.Sc.