Aletha Maybank

She is board certified in both pediatrics and preventive medicine/public health. Dr. Maybank is the chief health equity officer and vice president of the American Medical Association.

Maybank was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University, a Medical Degree from Temple University School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH, is a pediatrician and preventive medicine physician. She is a founding board member of the Artemis Medical Society, a groundbreaking organization of over 2,500 Black female physicians, established in 2012.

In addition to her pivotal role with Artemis, Dr. Maybank co-founded "We Are Doc McStuffins," with two other founding members of Artemis Medical Society, Dr. Myiesha Taylor, Dr. Naeemah Ghafur, who were inspired by the Disney Junior character Doc Mcstuffins. In the initiative she shared insights into her work and what it’s like to be a physician.

Maybank participated in medical mission trips to Haïti following the devastating earthquake in 2010, providing direct care to child survivors; she created the blog "On Call in the City" in an effort to make health an accessible topic "wherever one lives, works, plays, and prays”. She has a bi-weekly column, Doctor's Orders, on the website of EBONY magazine. The column was established for Maybank to share her health expertise with the African American community-at-large. She is also a contributor for Huffington Post. Her expertise centers on health equity, preventive medicine, food and fitness, maternal and child health, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and community health.

Maybank created the blog, "On Call in the City", in an effort to make health an accessible topic "wherever one lives, works, plays, and prays”. She has a bi-weekly column, Doctor's Orders, on the website of EBONY magazine. The column was established for Maybank to share her health expertise with the African American community-at-large. She is also a contributor for Huffington Post.

Maybank was a guest speaker at Kechie's Project and Bread & Roses High School Fashion Showcase in Harlem, NY on June 18, 2013. She spoke on a panel at the ESSENCE Festival Empowerment Experience Panels titled I Beat: Healthy, Journeys & Transformations on July 5, 2013. The topic was that maintaining healthy lifestyles require work and the panel experts shared tips on how to achieve overall fitness and diet goals.

Maybank was appointed the associate commissioner of the Center for Health Equity with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in 2014. She is the founding director of the department's Center of Health Equity.

In April 2019, she joined the American Medical Association (AMA) as their inaugural chief health equity officer and vice president. In that role she co-authored and edited the AMA’s guidance document Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative, and Concepts, which asked "questions about language and commonly used phrases and terms, with the goal of cultivating awareness about dominant narratives and offering equity-based, equity-explicit, and person-first alternatives."

• 2024, 10 Executives to Watch in 2024, Modern Health Care [1]
• 2024, STATUS List 2024 - The Ultimate List of Leaders in Life Sciences, Stat News [2]
• 2023, Allan Rosenfield Alumni Award for Excellence, Columbia Mailman Alumni Board’s Governance Committee [3]
• 2023, Fierce Healthcare's most influential minority executives in healthcare, Fierce Healthcare [4]
• 2023, Bronze Winner, The Telly Awards [5]
• 2023, Top 100 Global Recognition MIPAD, MIPAD100 [6]
• 2023, Hispanic Health Leadership Award, National Hispanic Health Foundation [7]
• 2012 The Network Journal 40 Under Forty Award
• 2012 Beauty and the Beat: Heroine in Excellence Award
• 2011 Outstanding NYC Leader Award, Kechie's Project
• 2011 NV Magazine's Movers & Shakers

• The Plight of DEI Leaders-Heavy Expectations and Limited Protection, 2024 [8]
• Efforts in Organized Medicine to Eliminate Harmful Race-Based Clinical Algorithms, 2024 [9]
• raining to build antiracist, equitable health care systems, 2023 [10]
• Embracing Creative Tensions To Advance Health Equity, 2023 [11]
• Embedding racial justice and advancing health equity at the American Medical Association, 2022 [12]
• Leveraging Affordable Care Act section 1557 to address racism in clinical algorithms, 2022 [13]
• Reparations for Black American descendants of persons enslaved in the US and their potential impact on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, 2021 [14]
• Structural medicine: towards an economy of care, 2021 [15]
• Medicine’s privileged gatekeepers: producing harmful ignorance about racism and health, 2021 [16]
• Making visible medicine's roots in colonialism, 2021 [17]
• Confronting Racism in Medicine: Stories of Resistance, 2021 [18]
• Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, 2021 [19]
• Focus: Preventive medicine: Race, racism, and the policy of 21st century medicine, 2021 [20]
• Health experts warn racism causes emotional and mental harm and urge medical institutions to address it, 2020 [21]
• Moving towards anti- racist praxis in medicine, 2020 [22]
• Why racial and ethnic data on COVID-19’s impact is badly needed, 2020 [23]
• Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic: the need for a structurally competent health care system, 2020 [24]
• Our Movement for Health Equity: Perspectives from Local Government, 2018 [25]
• Doula services within a healthy start program: increasing access for an underserved population, 2017 [26]
• A place-based community health worker program: feasibility and early outcomes, New York City in 2015, 2017 [27]
• 'Meet Dr. Aletha Maybank, Champion of Public Health', Jet Magazine, June 27, 2013 [28]
• 'A Physician on a Mission', Amsterdam News, May 23, 2013 [29]