Leandris Liburd, PhD, MPH, MA Acting Director for CDC’s Office of Health Equity (OHE)
Dr. Leandris Liburd is the Acting Director for CDC’s Office of Health Equity (OHE). She served as the Associate Director for Minority Health and Health Equity for CDC/ATSDR since 2011. In this capacity, she leads and supports a wide range of critical functions in the agency’s work in minority health, health equity, and women’s health. She plays a critical leadership role in determining the agency’s vision for health equity, ensuring a rigorous and evidence-based approach to the practice of health equity, and promoting the ethical practice of public health in communities vulnerable to health inequities. Dr. Liburd has been instrumental in building capacity across CDC and in public health agencies to address the social determinants of health, and in identifying and widely disseminating intervention strategies that reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. She has skillfully executed innovative models of collaboration that have greatly expanded the reach, influence, and impact of the Office of Health Equity including the successful implementation of the Lewis Scholars Program (formerly the CDC Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program) and the James A. Ferguson Emerging Infectious Diseases Graduate Fellowship.
Dr. Liburd is a respected public health leader who has over the course of her career championed community health promotion, chronic disease prevention, community engagement, eliminating health disparities, and addressing the social determinants of health. She has worked in public health at the local, state, and federal levels, and has held a variety of leadership positions at CDC since joining the agency in 1987. Dr. Liburd has published extensively on community-based public health approaches to chronic disease prevention and control, the influence of culture and gender on health beliefs and behaviors, and racial and ethnic health disparities.
Dr. Liburd holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a Master of Public Health in health education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Master of Arts in cultural anthropology and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in medical anthropology from Emory University.