Karen Davis to Receive 2013 TRUST Award

Karen Davis, PhD, the Eugene and Mildred Lipitz Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management and director of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, will receive the 2013 TRUST Award from the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) of the American Hospital Association (AHA). Established in 2003, the TRUST Award honors individuals who have exhibited visionary leadership in the health care field and who symbolize HRET’s mission to use research and education to improve health care quality in policy and practice.

Davis recently returned to the School after serving almost two decades as president of The Commonwealth Fund. Before joining The Commonwealth Fund in 1992, Davis served as chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management, where she also held an appointment as professor of economics. She served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services from 1977–1980, and was the first woman to head a U.S. Public Health Service agency. Prior to her government career, Davis was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., a visiting lecturer at Harvard University and an assistant professor of economics at Rice University.

The Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care strives to discover and disseminate practical, cost-effective approaches to providing comprehensive, coordinated, and compassionate health care to chronically ill people and their families. Davis has published a number of books, monographs and articles on health and social policy issues, including the landmark books Health Care Cost Containment, Medicare Policy, National Health Insurance: Benefits, Costs, and Consequences and Health and the War on Poverty.

She is also the recipient of several awards, including the Adam Yarmolinsky medal in 2007 for her contributions to the mission of the IOM and in 2006, she was selected for the AcademyHealth Distinguished Investigator Award for significant and lasting contributions to the field of health services research in addition to the Picker Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Patient Centered Care. She received her PhD in economics from Rice University, which recognized her achievements with a Distinguished Alumna Award in 1991. Davis also is the recipient of the 2000 Baxter-Allegiance Foundation Prize for Health Services Research.

HRET will honor Davis at a reception during the Health Forum/American Hospital Association Leadership Summit this summer in San Diego.  

Media contact: Tim Parsons, director of Public Affairs, at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.