036 Daniel E. Dawes, JD on how to overcome deep-rooted challenges in the American health care system

From his childhood on a rural Nebraskan farm to the negotiating tables in our nation’s capitol, Daniel Dawes has combined his lifelong passion for health equity, political acumen and confidence in a collaborative process to create real and powerful changes in the American healthcare system. With contagious hope and a non-partisan process, the widely respected health equity and policy expert leverages his understanding of the root causes of America’s healthcare problems to advance solutions.

 

Megan Hayes:

Daniel E. Dawes is a widely respected healthcare and public health leader, health equity and policy expert, educator and researcher who currently serves as Senior Vice President for Global Health and Executive Director of the Global Health Equity Institute at Meharry Medical College. He's also founding Dean of the School of Public Health at Meharry Medical College, the first school of public health at an historically black institution. He has also served as Executive Director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and is a professor of health law policy and management. Highly respected for his ability to achieve sound policy changes in a nonpartisan manner, Professor Dawes is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and an elected fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.

He serves as an advisor to the White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task force, an appointed member of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Advisory Committee to the director and co-chair of the CDC'S Health Equity Working Group, as well as the National Institutes of Health's National Advisory Council for Nursing Research. He's the author of two groundbreaking books, 150 Years of Obamacare, published in 2018, and the Political Determinants of Health published in 2020, both by Johns Hopkins University Press. Among his many achievements, he was an instrumental figure in developing and negotiating the Affordable Care Act's health equity focused provisions among other landmark federal policies.

He's the principal investigator for the nation's first health equity tracker, and he's a recipient of the American College of Preventative Medicine, Dr. Daniel S. Blumenthal Award and the National Medical Association's Louis Stokes Health Advocacy Award among many others. Professor Dawes holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Nova Southeastern University and a juris doctor in law with concentrations in health law and labor and employment law from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Later tonight, he will address App State students, faculty, and staff, as well as members of the broader community as the keynote speaker at Appalachian State's 38th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration, where he will speak about his work as well as the legacy of Dr. King. Daniel Dawes, welcome to App State and welcome to Sound Effect.

Daniel Dawes:

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here.

Megan Hayes:

I'd like to start, if you don't mind, if you wouldn't mind just beginning talking a little bit about your personal background and the path that led you to where you are now.

Daniel Dawes:

Yeah, absolutely. For me, it starts in Lincoln, Nebraska where I was born. You always wonder where should I start? I'm going to start from where I was born, because I think that played a significant role in who I am today. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska to farmers in a little town called Deshler, Nebraska, a town of 600 people in rural Nebraska, and really this product of a interracial marriage, black father, a white mother. What I found interesting as I was growing up was the dichotomy in terms of their health statuses on each side. On my mother's side, I noticed that a lot of my grandparents, uncles, aunts, other relatives were able to live past their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, had longer lifespans.

But then on the white side