Daniel Dawes

Daniel Dawes, an internationally recognized leader in the health equity movement and scholar on the political determinants of health, joined the Yale School of Nursing (YSN) as a Presidential Visiting Fellow for the 2024–25 academic year.

Dawes is the founding dean of the School of Global Health and senior vice president of global health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Among his many achievements, Dawes was an instrumental figure in developing and negotiating the Mental Health Parity Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act, and an architect of the Affordable Care Act’s (ObamaCare) health equity-focused provisions, among other landmark federal policies. He founded and chaired the largest advocacy group, the National Working Group on Health Disparities and Health Reform, focused on developing comprehensive, inclusive, and meaningful legislation to reform the healthcare system and address the disparities in health care and health status among racial and ethnic minorities, people living with disabilities, women, children, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans, and other vulnerable groups in the United States.

Dawes is the co-founder of the Health Equity Leadership and Exchange Network (HELEN), which is a national network of health equity champions in virtually every state and territory, principal investigator of the nation’s first health equity tracker, and co-principal investigator of the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network.

Dawes is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and an elected fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. He serves as an advisor to The White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, an appointed member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee to the Director, where he co-chairs the Health Equity working group for the CDC, and an appointed member of the NIH’s National Advisory Council for Nursing Research.

While at YSN, Dawes is helping to advance academic program development and research centered on the political determinants of health.