Dr. Tyra Bryant-Stephens Appointed Inaugural Leader of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Health Equity

Tyra Bryant-Stephens, MD Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) today announced that Tyra Bryant-Stephens, MD has been appointed Senior Director of its Center for Health Equity. In this new role, Dr. Bryant-Stephens will lead the development and execution of a bold strategic plan to address the impact of healthcare disparities in Philadelphia and beyond. She will closely partner with teams in CHOP’s Center for Healthcare Quality and Analytics and Healthier Together team to continuously improve the health and healthcare of CHOP’s patients and those in the surrounding Philadelphia community.

“Dr. Bryant-Stephens’ work at CHOP, and in the community, makes her the ideal leader to collaborate with numerous department and division leaders in prioritizing health equity as a core value in our ongoing improvement work here at CHOP,” said Madeline Bell, President and CEO at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We know that Dr. Bryant-Stephens is excited for the opportunity to build the Center, design and implement new initiatives to promote health equity, and provide local and national thought-leadership on issues of child health equity.”

“The scope of our new Center is broad, as progress on issues of health equity means intentionally improving both the way we care for children in all of our CHOP facilities, and how we partner with community organizations to address wider public health concerns that impact families, including housing; employment; education; criminal justice; environmental justice; and services addressing language barriers,” said Gilbert Davis, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Bryant-Stephens founded and has served as Medical Director of CHOP’s Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) since 1997. This innovative program utilizes community health workers to implement asthma prevention and management interventions in underserved, poorly resourced Philadelphia communities to reduce asthma disparities and achieve health equity for low-income minority patients.

“CHOP aspires to break down barriers that inhibit children’s health and lead to disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. In so doing, we seek to make all of the children in the Philadelphia metropolitan area among the healthiest children in the country,” added Ron Keren, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at CHOP. “Our pediatric focus and expertise, our scale, and our proven track record with health equity research, advocacy and community partnerships make us uniquely suited to advance this ambitious goal. We’ve made considerable inroads with groundbreaking initiatives, including the new Health Equity Center, to support some of our city’s most vulnerable communities.”

Dr. Bryant-Stephens is a past member of the U.S. EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee and recently served as a member of the Expert Panel Working Group of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Dr. Bryant-Stephens currently serves as a member of the Philadelphia Board of Health, the PDPH Racial Equity Committee for COVID-19 Testing and PDPH COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee.

“Here at CHOP, we are committed to addressing health equity as part of our overall mission; however, implementing interventions that will truly reduce disparities is difficult to scale and sustain without increased funding,” Bell added. “While initial funding and some grants enabled us to create the Center for Health Equity, achieving a deep, lasting and necessary impact needs greater resources, and we are seeking donors to help advance these important efforts.”