Indian Health Service (IHS)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Yvette Roubideaux
Director, Indian Health Service (IHS)
E-mail: director@IHS.gov
Phone: (301) 443-1083
Yvette Roubideaux, M.D., M.P.H., a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, South Dakota, is the Director of the Indian Health Service (IHS). Dr. Roubideaux was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as IHS Director on May 6, 2009, and she was sworn in on May 12, 2009.
Dr. Roubideaux previously worked for IHS for three years as a clinical director and medical officer at the San Carlos Service Unit on the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation in Arizona, and she worked for one year as a medical officer at the Hu Hu Kam Memorial Indian Hospital on the Gila River Indian reservation in Arizona.
Dr. Roubideaux recently served as assistant professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Dr. Roubideaux has conducted extensive research on American Indian health issues, with a focus on diabetes in American Indians/Alaska Natives and American Indian health policy. Dr. Roubideaux served as the co-director of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Demonstration Projects, in which 66 American Indian and Alaska Native communities are implementing diabetes prevention and cardiovascular disease prevention initiatives. She also served as director of two University of Arizona programs designed to recruit American Indian and Alaska Native students into health and research professions.
Dr. Roubideaux received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1989 and completed a residency program in primary care internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston in 1992. She completed her Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1997. She also completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy before transitioning to a career in academic medicine and public health.