TraCS TL1 Scholar wins 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health award

The National Minority Quality Forum has announced the winners of the 2021 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health. After receiving hundreds of applications from healthcare professionals across the country, these 40 represent the next generation of thought leaders in reducing health disparities.

UNC's Megan L. Srinivas, MD, MPH, is one of this year's winners.

Srinivas is an infectious disease physician and translational health policy researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill who resides and practices in Iowa. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health and using public policy to overcome health inequities. She's currently leading a NIH-funded study on how legislative defunding of family planning health centers impacts access to healthcare in rural America.

Srinivas was the first student member on the Iowa State Board of Education, appointed by Secretary (and former Governor) Tom Vilsack. She previously worked for the World Food Prize Foundation in Kenya analyzing factors influencing household food security and was awarded the John Chrystal Award for outstanding contribution to hunger issues. In college, Srinivas co-founded Boston's Peer Health Exchange, a non-profit teaching comprehensive health education in socioeconomically-disadvantaged schools. She also studied the evolution of malarial drug resistance in South America, changing national treatment policy in Peru and earning one of Harvard's most prestigious undergraduate awards, the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize. During her Masters in Public Health, Srinivas investigated healthcare stigma/discrimination impeding HIV treatment in Brazil.

"Our country needs new leaders to fulfill the dream of eliminating health disparities in a generation. Fresh ideas and new approaches are needed to decrease health inequalities for minority communities currently suffering from poor access to quality healthcare."

Dr. Robin Kelly, Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust Chair

She currently works with Project Echo to provide hepatitis C care via telehealth in the rural US. She is a national delegate to the American Medical Association where she also sits on the 12-person Council on Medical Service. She is a 2020 Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity, a board member of Iowa's National Alliance for Mental Illness, and was appointed to/currently serves on the Iowa Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission. During fall 2020, Srinivas served as the chair of President-Elect Biden's Iowa COVID Response Council. She has been an advocate for science-based COVID policies since the start of the pandemic and was recently named one of InStyle Magazine's 2020 "Bad Ass Women of the Year," an award recognizing 50 women making a difference in US health care. She co-founded the COVID Health Animation Project (CHAP), which creates culturally-informed health animations to help address COVID's racialized disparities.

Srinivas also sits on the Infectious Disease Society of America's Public Health Advisory Committee, testifies regularly before state and national policymakers, and has published articles on COVID policy proposals. She's frequently featured in local and national media outlets including appearances in NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, CNBC, The Associated Press, The Hill, The Guardian, and Newsy.

Srinivas grew up in rural Iowa as the daughter of two Indian immigrants. She graduated from Harvard College in 2009, University of Iowa Medical School in 2014, Harvard School of Public Health in 2014, and completed her medical residency at Johns Hopkins University in 2017.

Read more about Dr. Srinivas' research:

• CTSA Program research fellow breaks down barriers
• UNC's Megan Srinivas guest on NPR's Morning Edition
• TraCS CTSA TL1 postdoctoral training program

The National Minority Quality Forum was founded in 1998 to address the critical need for strengthening national and local efforts to use evidence-based, data-driven initiatives to guide programs to eliminate the disproportionate burden of premature death and preventable illness for racial and ethnic minorities and other special populations.