Lydia A. Isaac, PhD MSc
Vice President, Health Equity and Policy, National Urban League
Lydia Isaac is the Vice President for Health Equity and Policy at the National Urban League, where she is responsible for the strategic vision and programmatic services for Health. Dr. Isaac has a faculty appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She most recently served as an Associate Research Professor and Executive Director of the RWJF funded Health Policy Research Scholars Program (HPRS) program at George Washington University where she was responsible for the day-to-day operations and curriculum development for the program. Previously, she was the Director of Policy and Health Systems Analysis in the Office of Policy, Planning and Strategic Data in the First Deputy Commissioner’s office at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In addition, she has worked in healthcare where she was the Director of Quality Improvements and Grants for HIV Services at the NYC Health and Hospitals, the Public Benefit Corporation of the public hospitals of NYC.
Dr. Isaac has worked in local and state government throughout her career and in academia where she has taught classes on community health assessment and the social disparities in health. She has a bachelors’ degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, a Master of Science degree in Health and Social behavior from the Harvard School of Public Health and a doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr Isaac is chair of the Board of ChangeLab Solutions a health law nonprofit based in Oakland, CA and sits on the board of APICHA, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in NYC. She was also appointed to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Advisory Panel on Outreach and Education from 2022-2025.
Dr. Isaac is passionate about advancing Health Equity by translating research into policy and practice, investigating the mechanisms that lead to racial and ethnic health disparities, emphasizing the social determinants of health and highlighting the importance of the neighborhood environment and its role in health promotion.