Anne Beal, M.D.

Anne C. Beal, M.D., M.P.H., is dedicated to improving health care in the U.S., particularly for vulnerable patient groups such as children and minorities. Her career is devoted to providing access to high quality health care for all and has included delivering healthcare services, teaching, research, and educating the public about their health.

Dr. Beal is Senior Program Officer for the Program on Quality of Care for Underserved Populations at the Commonwealth Fund. The goal of the program is to improve quality and reduce disparities in healthcare for low income and racial/ethnic minority patients by promoting quality improvement innovations and addressing barriers to quality improvement adoptions that would benefit the underserved. The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

Early in her career, Dr. Beal worked with a mobile medical unit project delivering healthcare services to children living in homeless shelters throughout New York City. Prior to joining the Fund, Dr. Beal was a health services researcher at the Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, she was Associate Director of the Multicultural Affairs Office of Massachusetts General Hospital, an attending pediatrician within the division of General Pediatrics, and held faculty positions both within Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Beal’s research interests include social influences on preventive health behaviors for minorities, racial disparities in health care, collection of race/ethnicity data, and quality of care. She serves on the advisory boards for many organizations,
has been a reviewer for the Health Systems Research study section of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and was recently appointed as co-chair of the Healthcare Disparities Technical Advisory Panel for the National Quality Forum (NQF) Ambulatory Care Measures’ Project. Dr. Beal has been an active member of AcademyHealth for over a decade having served as an abstract reviewer, organizer and moderator for annual meeting sessions, served on the planning committee for the National Health Policy Conference, serves on the advisory committee of the NCHS/AcademyHealth Fellowship, and is on the advisory committee for the Disparities Interest Group.

In addition to publishing in the peer-reviewed medical literature, Dr. Beal is also the author of The Black Parenting Book: Caring for Our Children in the First Five Years. Dr. Beal has been a pediatric commentator and medical correspondent for Essence Magazine, The American Baby Show, ABC News, and NBC News. Dr. Beal holds a B.A. from Brown University, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and an M.P.H. from Columbia University. She completed her internship, residency, and NRSA fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.