Roland Thorpe, PhD, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Program for Research on Men’s Health at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, was appointed this month to the Advisory Committee on Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Advisory Committee on Minority Health advises the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health on issues affecting the health and wellbeing of minorities. The Office of Minority Health (OMH) at HHS works to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of policies and programs that aim to eliminate health disparities.
“I’m honored to accept this appointment and to work toward the critically important goal of improving the health of minorities and reducing the vast health disparities that exist among racial and ethnic groups in this country,” said Thorpe.
Thorpe’s research has focused on racial and socioeconomic health disparities, particularly among U.S. men. He serves as principal investigator of the National Black Men’s Health Pilot Study and co-investigator of the Disparities in Prostate Cancer Treatment Modality and Quality of Life: Baseline Study and the Son’s Study for Prostate Cancer Risk Awareness Study, all of which are focused on reducing men’s health disparities.
The Office of Minority Health was established in 1986 as a result of the 1985 Secretary’s Task Force Report on Black and Minority Health to address the poor health outcomes for minorities compared to the rest of the U.S. population, including higher rates of illness and death from conditions such as heart disease, stroke, specific cancers, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, asthma, hepatitis B, and obesity. OMH was reauthorized in 2010 by the Affordable Care Act.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health contacts: Andrea Maruniak at amarunia@jhsph.edu or 410-502-3373 or Barbara Benham at bbenham1@jhu.edu or 410-614-6029.
