John Rich is director of the Rush BMO Institute for Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The mission of the Institute is to build, evaluate and sustain scalable approaches to improving health and eliminating health inequities. Dr. Rich’s work focuses on issues of urban violence, trauma, and health inequities, particularly as they affect the health of men of color. In 2006, Dr. Rich was awarded a MacArthur Genius Fellowship in recognition of his work to design “new models of health care that stretch across the boundaries of public health, education, social service, and justice systems to engage young men in caring for themselves and their peers.”
Prior to Rush, Dr. Rich served as professor of health management and policy in the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, where he co-founded the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice and the hospital-based violence intervention program, Healing Hurt People. Prior to Drexel, Dr. Rich served as the medical director of the Boston Public Health Commission, where he led the city’s initiatives on Men’s Health, Cancer, Cardiovascular Health and Health Disparities. As a primary care doctor at Boston Medical Center, he created the Young Men’s Health Clinic and initiated the Boston HealthCREW, a program to train inner city young men as peer health educators. His book about urban violence, Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men, shares stories of trauma and healing.
Dr. Rich earned his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine, a master’s degree in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College. He completed his internship and residency in primary care internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in general internal medicine at the Harvard Medical School. In 2009, Dr. Rich was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to CHCS, Dr. Rich serves on the board of Trust for America’s Health.