Xinzhi Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., FACE, is the Director of the Division of Practice Improvement (DPI) at the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, which is part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The DPI includes initiatives such as AHRQ’s Academy for Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care, the Long COVID Care Network, EvidenceNOW, and various projects focused on patient-centered preventive health and shared decision-making.
Before joining AHRQ, Dr. Zhang served as the Chief of the Health Inequities and Global Health Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He was also the Scientific Program Director of the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) and Co-chaired the NIH UNITE N Committee, which addresses health disparities and promotes health equity.
Dr. Zhang joined NIH in 2012 as a Program Director in the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, where he provided leadership in scientific program development and project management related to minority health and health disparities research. He later served in the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, managing a portfolio of Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) and overseeing the CTSA National Center for Data to Health.
Prior to his tenure at NIH, Dr. Zhang began at the National Center for Infectious Diseases’ Office of Surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2003 as a Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Fellow. From 2005 to 2012, he was an epidemiologist at CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Dr. Zhang has authored four papers included in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published by the CDC, three book chapters, and 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is a co-editor of the 2021 textbook The Science of Health Disparities Research and served as the interim Editor-in-Chief of the journal Health Equity.
Throughout his career, Dr. Zhang has received numerous honors and awards from NIH, CDC, AHRQ, the American Public Health Association, and the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. These accolades include two Secretary’s Awards for Distinguished Service, the Hubert H. Humphrey Award for Service to America, six NIH Director’s Awards, two Presidential Unit Citations, and four Outstanding Service Medals. Dr. Zhang earned his M.D. from Peking Union Medical College in 1998 and his Ph.D. in health services administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2003.