Dr. Bethell is a Professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, where she serves as the founding director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) within the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. She established and leads the National Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health (www.childhealthdata.org), one of the first resources in the US to liberate federal and state level data directly for public access and to advance research, policy and practice based applications of population based data to improve individual, family and community health. She has been pivotal in the building the field of patient centered quality improvement through the design, testing and dissemination of methods like the Health 2.0 recognized Well Visit Planner (www.wellvisitplanner.org) as well as through development of a national agenda to address childhood trauma and family health as cross cutting factors in human health and well-being. Since 1996, Dr. Bethell has been a national leader in the development of child, family and population health and systems performance measurement methods like the National Survey of Children’s Health and the first Consumer Assessment of Health Plans and Providers Survey (CAHPS) for children with special health care needs . Her work has focused on promoting early and lifelong health with a special focus on patient, family and community centered engagement, addressing social determinants of health like adverse childhood experiences, advancing a positive construct for health and human flourishing and translating neuroscience and integrative health methods. She also leads the Maternal and Child Health Measurement Research Network to foster the actionable use of MCH measures and foster shared accountability across agencies and communities to advance MCH outcomes and system performance.She is passionate about enabling data-driven partnerships at all levels and translating the new brain sciences, mindfulness and other mind-body methods to transform health and related services to prevent illness and promote thriving; with a focus on promoting community led healing, promoting positive health and advancing High Reliability Organizations. She writes poetry and enjoys all aspects of the creative process.
Dr. Bethell is a 2017 AcademyHealth senior scholar in residence.