Barbara Turner, MD, MSEd, MA, MACP

Barbara Turner, PhD, is a professor of medicine in the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.  She is a practicing general internist with 35 years of experience in health disparities research and community-partnered research. In 2010, she established the Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH) as a partnership between the University of Texas (UT) Health San Antonio and the UT School of Public Health (UTSPH). ReACH now has 29 Scholars from multiple disciplines and institutions who share the mission of improving health outcomes through community-oriented research focusing on the low-income, Hispanic residents of South Texas.  Her research has focused on health disparities through administrative database studies, randomized trials, and implementation & dissemination projects. The subject areas for her health disparities research are diverse including preventive care, chronic disease management, community-engagement, and implementation of evidence-based models of care.  Recently, Dr. Turner has been principal investigator (PI) on four federal- and state-funded projects to implement HCV screening and management in diverse primary care practices.  She has over 175 peer-reviewed publications and editorials from research funded by the NIH, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).  She is the lead author on a Handbook for Community Engagement of Underserved Populations completed as part of a PCORI grant which is being published by the Society of Public Health Educators. For eight years, Dr. Turner served as director of a primary care physician-scientist fellowship funded by Health Resources and Services Administration’s National Research Service Award at the University of Pennsylvania.  She has mentored over 50 individuals at all levels of training from college to faculty.  In regard to leadership positions, She has served as Regent of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM).  Dr. Turner completed an MD (1987) and a MSEd (1984) at the University of Pennsylvania, an MA (1973) from Harvard University and a BA (1972) from Wellesley College.