January 13, 2021

The French-American Foundation hosted its first virtual Transatlantic Forum meeting of 2021 on Wednesday, January 13 at 6:00 pm. Guest speaker Paula Braveman, Director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at UCSF, discussed how systemic racism influences equitable health care in the United States and abroad, based on scientific data. The discussion was moderated by Elena Pak, Head of North America at The Fred Hollows Foundation and a 2014 Young Leader.

Paula Braveman: Paula Braveman, MD, MPH, is Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her formal training was in Family and Community Medicine (at UCSF) and in Epidemiology (at University of California, Berkeley).  Dr. Braveman has worked as a physician at the county hospital, a neighborhood health center, and a school-based health center in San Francisco.  For over 30 years, she has studied and published extensively on health equity, health disparities, and the social determinants of health, and has worked to bring attention to these issues in the U.S. and internationally.  Her research has focused on measuring, documenting, understanding, and addressing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health, primarily in maternal and infant health. Full bio.

Elena Pak: Elena Pak provides leadership in all aspects of the North American office for the Fred Hollows Foundation, an international development organization focusing on blindness prevention. Prior to joining The Foundation, Elena served as the chief development officer at Girl Scouts of the USA where she was responsible for the strategic direction and implementation of the national ToGetHerThere campaign, the largest advocacy and fundraising initiative dedicated to girls’ leadership. Before Girl Scouts, Elena was senior vice president of resource development at United Way of New York City, where she oversaw major philanthropic support from individuals, corporations, and foundations. Full bio.