Elsie M. Taveras, MD, MPH has been named the Chief Community Health Equity Officer for Mass General Brigham. Dr. Taveras currently serves as the Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics and Executive Director of the Kraft Center for Community Health at Mass General Hospital. She will start her new role in mid-May while continuing her research work in the Department of Pediatrics at MassGeneral Hospital for Children and her leadership of the Kraft Center for Community Health at Mass General Hospital.
“There is tremendous work already underway at entities across Mass General Brigham and by harnessing this collective strength under Dr. Taveras’s leadership we will accelerate our progress.”
She has extensive experience implementing evidence-based programs in both clinical and community settings. As a community health services researcher, her focus has been on understanding determinants of chronic diseases in women and children and developing rigorous interventions across the life course to prevent obesity and chronic diseases, especially in underserved populations.
“Dr. Taveras will lead our system efforts of United Against Racism focused on patient care and health equity and will drive our new systemwide strategy in community health; all with a focus on demonstrable outcomes,” said Tom Sequist, MD, Mass General Brigham’s Chief Patient Experience and Equity Officer. “There is tremendous work already underway at entities across Mass General Brigham and by harnessing this collective strength under Dr. Taveras’s leadership we will accelerate our progress. I am incredibly excited for the difference we will make in the lives of our patients and the communities we serve across the region and beyond.”
Dr. Taveras’s leadership, passion and expertise has been recognized widely. In 2017, she was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics becoming the first Latina at Harvard Medical School to reach that rank in Pediatrics. In 2018, she received the Conrad Taff Endowed Chair at Harvard Medical School, becoming the first Latina to hold an Endowed Professorship across Harvard Medical School and at Mass General, and from 2015-2020, she was named the Ofer and Shelly Nemirovsky MGH Research Scholar. She has more than 250 publications and has received continuous research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the American Diabetes Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Boston Foundation, among many other federal and foundation sources.
