Office of Diversity Programs at Washington University School of Medicine will present John A. Rich, M.D., M.P.H., in its the 16th Annual Homer G. Phillips Public Health Lecture Series.
Dr. Rich, professor and chair of Health Management and Policy at Drexel University School of Public Health, will speak on “Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Violence, Trauma and Health Equity.”
The lecture will be held Friday, October 21 at the Washington University School of Medicine, 320 South Euclid Ave. Cocktails are at 6 p.m., dinner at 6:30 p.m. and Rich’s lecture at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. John A. Rich is a leader in the field of public health whose work has focused on serving one of the nation’s most ignored and underserved populations – African-American men in urban settings. His goal is to tackle the corrosive combination of urban violence, poverty, lack of primary care and low societal expectations.
His recently published book about urban violence, Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men has drawn critical acclaim for its gripping account of the impact of post-traumatic stress disorders on survivors of youth violence.
An African-American man raised in Queens, N.Y., Dr. Rich said he was largely able to avoid similar trauma, growing up with working-class neighbors and parents who stressed the value of education – a teacher mother and dentist father who sent him to parochial school.
Dr. Rich recently was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur grant for his work in addressing the primary health care needs of young men in the inner city by designing clinical services and training programs.
In 2009, Dr. Rich was inducted into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
He joined the Drexel School of Public Health in July 2005, where he helped establish the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. Supported by more than $1 million in grants, the center focuses on urban trauma as a public health issue and provides a program of healing for victims of violence. Dr. Rich is noted for his research using in-depth interviews with young African-American victims of violence to understand the effect of trauma in their lives.
Dr. Rich previously served as the medical director of the Boston Public Health Commission. In 1990, he was awarded the Kellogg National Fellowship, a three-year initiative to learn about the social and health concerns of young black men. Rich launched the Young Men’s Health Clinic at Boston City Hospital, a primary care clinic designed to meet the needs of young men in the inner city, in 1993. He served as principal investigator on a number of CDC-funded grants including REACH Elders and Steps to a Healthy Boston. In 1997, he received a five-year award from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the experience of violence among young African-American men.
He graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in English. He received his medical degree from Duke University Medical School. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He then completed the Harvard General Medicine Faculty Development Fellowship, also at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Rich holds a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Free parking is available on surface lots, validated parking available in the North Garage, across the street from the Center for Advanced Medicine Building or the Metro garage. Please bring your parking ticket to the lobby.
For more information, please call 314-362-6854 or email Michelle Patterson at mpatterson@wustl.edu.
