Chandra Ford, PhD, MPH, MLIS

Dr. Ford is Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health. Prior to joining UCLA, she completed postdoctoral training in Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where she was a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Kellogg Health Scholar. Overall, Dr. Ford’s research: (1) examines relationships between racism-related factors and disparities in the HIV care continuum; and, (2) advances the conceptual and methodological tools for studying racism’s relationship to health disparities.

She serves the profession widely. In 2016, she was named to the National Academy of Medicine Committee on Community-based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and appointed co-chair of the Committee on Science of the American Public Health Association’s newly formed Anti-Racism Collaborative. Previously, she served as President of the Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues. Currently, she is a member of the Minority Affairs Committee of the American College of Epidemiology and Chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.

Bio from 25th Annual UCLA Healthcare Symposium

Dr. Chandra L. Ford, MLIS, MPH, PhD, is Professor of Community Health Sciences, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Healthand co-chair with Bita Amani of the Center’s COVID-19 Task Force on Racism & Equity in the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2019, she served as lead editor (with Derek Griffith, Marino Bruce and Keon Gilbert) of Racism:Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional (APHAPress, 2019). She earned a doctorate in Health Behavior from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Social Medicine (at the University of North CarolinaSchool of Medicine) and Epidemiology (at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health) as a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Kellogg Health Scholar. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Public Health, Health Promotion Practice,Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, Social Science & Medicine, the Boston University Law Review, and other peer-reviewed journals. She has received many teaching awards and several notable honors, including the 2020 Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Women Physicians, a TrueHero Award from TruEvolution and a 2019 Paul Cornely Award from the Health Activist Dinner group. Dr. Ford serves the profession extensively. In 2016, she served on aNational Academy of Medicine Committee on Community-based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United Statesof the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and named co-chair of the Committee on Science of the American Public Health Association’s newly formed Anti-Racism Collaborative.She previously served as president ofthe Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues. In addition to her academic roles, she has been involved with the Black Radical Congress and has partnered with the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders.