The COVID-19 pandemic has been revealing long-standing inequities that have existed for years in the United States within our healthcare system but also within our society. How can leaders in the healthcare system help ensure we are not only tackling the pandemic but also creating lasting solutions to address health inequities? On Thursday, September 24 at 11:00am ET, the Aspen Global Innovators Group heared about the importance of addressing health inequities with Garth Graham, Vice President, Chief Community Health Officer of CVS Health in conversation with Weijia Jiang, White House Correspondent for CBS News.
Speakers
Garth Graham
Dr. Garth Graham, M.D., MPH, FACP, FACC, is a leading authority on social determinants of health and health equity. As the Vice President of Community Health for CVS Health, Dr. Graham leads the enterprise-widecommunity and social determinants of health (SDoH) strategy, working closely with CVS Health’s many businesses, to ensure differentiated, measurable and scalable approaches to addressing community health in communities across the country. Additionally, he leads public health partnerships and cardiovascular initiatives for CVS Health. Dr. Graham joined CVS Health through the Aetna acquisition, where he was President of the Aetna Foundation since 2014.
A cardiologist and professor of medicine, Dr. Graham is passionate about the opportunity to improve local health through cross-sector collaboration. Dr. Graham previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under both the Obama and Bush Administrations, where he also ran the Office of Minority Health. He directed the development of the federal government’s first NationalHealth Disparities Plan released under the Obama administration. Dr. Graham was also the assistant dean for health policy at the University of Florida School of Medicine, where he led several research initiatives looking at how to improve outcomes and readmission rates in cardiac patients in underserved populations.
He contributes to several boards including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Advisory Council, the Institute of Medicine Board on Population Health, Board of the National Quality Forum, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Associational National Quality Oversight Committee, the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Data Standards, the Harvard Medical School Diversity Fund (chair) and was named by the President to the U.S. Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research many others.
Dr. Graham has been featured in media outlets including Fortune, USA Today, The Hill, The Chicago Tribune, Essence, U.S. News & World Report, Quartz and Ebony. Dr. Graham holds a medical degree from Yale School of Medicine, an MPH from Yale School of Public Health and a bachelor of science in biology from Florida International University. He completed clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Johns Hopkins where he trained in cardiology and interventional cardiology. He holds three board certifications including internal medicine, cardiology and interventional cardiology.
Weijia Jiang
Weijia Jiang is a CBS News White House correspondent based in Washington, D.C. Jiang’s reporting is featured across all CBS News broadcasts and platforms, including the “CBS Evening News,” “CBS This Morning” and CBSN, CBS News’ 24/7 streaming news service.
She has traveled with President Trump on numerous occasions, both domestically and abroad. She has covered major political stories for the network including the President’s historic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the 2018 midterm elections, the nomination process and confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and the Mueller Probe.
Jiang joined CBS News in 2015 as a correspondent for Newspath, the Network’s 24-hour television newsgathering service for CBS stations and broadcasters around the world. Since then, she has reported extensively on both the Obama and Trump administrations, the 2016 presidential campaign and election, the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush; and the congressional baseball shooting that wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. She has also covered a number of national stories such as Hurricane Harvey, the catastrophic Category 4 hurricane that hit Texas in 2017.
Before coming to CBS News, Jiang was a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor at WCBS-TV in New York (2012-2015) where she covered Superstorm Sandy; the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.; and the Boston Marathon bombings.
Previously, Jiang worked at WJZ-TV in Baltimore (2008-2012) and WBOC-TV in Salisbury, Md. (2006-2008) where she was honored with an Edward R. Murrow Award and an Associated Press Award for feature reporting. When she was a graduate school candidate in 2006, she worked for WBRE-TV in Scranton, Penn., as a Washington, D.C.-based reporter. She discovered her passion for broadcasting at the age of 13 as a student reporter and anchor for Channel One News in Los Angeles.
Jiang graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a minor in Chemistry, and from Syracuse University in 2006 with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. In 2012 she was inducted into the prestigious Professional Gallery at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She is an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association.
She was born in Xiamen, China, and raised in West Virginia, where she immigrated with her parents when she was 2 years old. She currently resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband and their daughter.