| Chair | Neeta Thakur, MD, MPH | San Francisco, CA |
| Vice Chair | Juan P. Wisnivesky, MD, DrPH | New York, NY |
| Committee Member | Alejandro A. Diaz, MD | Arlington, MA |
| Committee Member | Christian Bime, MD, MSc | Tucson, AZ |
| Committee Member | Christopher F. Chesley, MD | Philadelphia, PA |
| Committee Member | Deepshikha C. Ashana, MD, MBA, MS | Durham, NC |
| Committee Member | Isaretta L. Riley, MD, MPH | Durham, NC |
| Committee Member | Juliana C. Ferreira, MD, PhD | Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil |
| Committee Member | Lauren Castro, APN, MSN, RN | CHICAGO, IL |
| Committee Member | Lynn B. Gerald, PhD, MSPH | Tucson, AZ |
| Committee Member | Michelle Sharp, MD, MHS | Baltimore, MD |
| Committee Member | Sande O. Okelo, MD, PhD | Los Angeles, CA |
| Committee Member | Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir, MD, MS | New York, NY |
| Committee Member | Sunita Sharma, MD, MPH | Aurora, CO |
| Committee Member | Victor E. Ortega, MD, PhD, ATSF | Scottsdale, AZ |
| Staff | Courtney L. White | New York, NY |
The Health Equity and Diversity Committee serves as a resource to the ATS Executive Committee and Board of Directors on issues related to health equity and diversity within our membership and leadership. This committee is charged with promoting diversity and inclusion within the organization and with creating a plan for addressing health equity and diversity issues through cross committee collaboration and the ATS at-large.
Benchmarks, 2021-2022:
• Foster diversity of the workforce through encouraging non-majority groups to enter the fields of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine;
• Monitor health equity and diversity initiatives throughout the ATS organization, serve as a resource for committees collaborating on projects related to health equity, promote diversity within ATS membership related task forces, committees, special projects and overall leadership; and periodically report progress of ATS health equity and diversity initiatives to the Executive Committee and Board of Directors;
• Lead and encourage projects, symposia and publications related to lung health in vulnerable populations;
• Evaluate and improve the fellowship program to develop ATS leaders in health equity and in advocacy;
• Raise awareness about health equity and diversity issues through ATS publications, the ATS annual meeting, and other approaches.
• Review and provide input on the current proportion of ethnic/racial minorities in ATS leadership positions and key positions within assemblies.
• In collaboration with other committees, develop ATS mentoring programming for early career professionals targeted at those who are under-represented in medicine and science.
• Participate in quarterly meetings with the International Health Committee forum.
• In collaboration with the Environmental Health Policy Committee, explore opportunities to advance environmental justice.
• In collaboration with the Planning and Evaluation Committee, support the implementation of priority strategies from the HEDC Road Map of initiatives and purpose metrics for evaluation and benchmarks of success for these activities.
