NCMHD Announces HIV/AIDS Expert as New Senior
Policy Advisor
Idalia Ramos Sanchez, a longtime fighter for health equity
especially as it relates to HIV/AIDS, has been appointed senior
policy advisor at the National Center on Minority Health and
Health Disparities (NCMHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH).
She will serve as the primary legislative liaison within the
Division of Scientific Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis
(DSSPPA). DSSPPA is the coordination arm for the development
of NCMHD's strategic plan and responsible for assessing and
highlighting NIH's overall effort to eliminate health disparities.
"The Center is undertaking critically important work in understanding
the nature of the health disparities that afflict so many Americans
and how to eliminate them," said John Ruffin, Ph.D., NCMHD
director. "Ms. Sanchez's extensive policy and legislative
experience will help us shape programs to meet congressional
intent and provide policy guidance to our grantees."
Sanchez has spent 25 years in public health, most of them
fighting HIV/AIDS. She has held policy positions in which she
could make sure that scarce resources were spent in the most
effective manner to help disproportionately impacted persons
— the uninsured, underinsured and medically underserved communities.
"Having played a role in 2000 in the research and writing
of the minority health disparities bill which created the center,
I have always felt linked to NCMHD and the importance of its
mission," said Sanchez. "I look forward to using my policy
development and legislative background to help the Center bring
fairness and equity in research, care and treatment for all
Americans."
Prior to coming to NCMHD, Sanchez was the associate director
for policy in the HIV/AIDS Bureau at the Health Resources and
Services Administration (HRSA). In all she worked for 10 years
at HRSA. Sanchez began her public health career at the Department
of Public Health in Hartford, Connecticut. She is widely published
and often asked to participate on prestigious review panels
concerning HIV/AIDS issues.
Sanchez holds a M.P.H., from Yale University and B.A from
Wesleyan University.
The NCMHD is a component of the NIH. The NCMHD promotes minority
health and leads, coordinates, supports and assesses the NIH
effort to eliminate health disparities. The NCMHD programs
focus on expanding the nation's ability to conduct research
and to build a diverse culturally-competent research workforce
to eliminate health disparities.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's
Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and
Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting
and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research,
and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and
its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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