Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A.
President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, NJBIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a national leader in transforming America’s health systems so people live healthier lives and receive the health care they need. A practicing physician with business credentials and hands-on experience developing national health policy, she was drawn to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by the opportunity, as she puts it, to “alter the trajectory and to push society to change for the better.”
Driven by the belief that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a steward of private resources that must be used in the public’s interest, particularly to help the most vulnerable, Lavizzo-Mourey combines the values she learned as a doctor—commitment to others, a sense of altruism—with the skills and knowledge from her business training—the importance of measuring results and outcomes, of clear accountability, of taking a disciplined approach to managing resources and motivating people. Through it all, she is guided by the conviction that philanthropy is about simultaneously improving individual lives, transforming systems and in turn, achieving lasting social change.
Under Lavizzo-Mourey’s leadership, the Foundation has restructured its strategic investments to target a set of high-impact priorities, among them:- Reversing the rise in childhood obesity.
- Designing a more effective, performance-driven, patient-centered health system.
- Improving the quality and safety of patient care.
- Strengthening state and local public health systems.
- Covering the uninsured.
- Developing the next generation of health leaders and policy-makers.
Lavizzo-Mourey was a leader in academic medicine, government service and her medical specialty of geriatrics before joining RWJF in 2001 as senior vice president and director of the health care group. Previously, at the University of Pennsylvania, she was the Sylvan Eisman Professor of medicine and health care systems and director of Penn’s Institute on Aging. In Washington, D.C., she was deputy administrator of what is now the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies.
Raised in Seattle by physician parents, Lavizzo-Mourey earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. She completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston; was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania; and trained in Geriatrics at Penn. Always a physician as well as an agent for wide-scale social change, she still treats patients at a community health clinic in New Brunswick, N.J. She and her husband of 30 years have two adult children.
PERSONAL STATEMENT:
Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey says we want to help all children and families eat well and move more; especially those in communities at highest risk for obesity. Our goal is to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015 by improving access to affordable, healthy foods and increasing opportunities for physical activity in schools and communities across the nation.
The Foundation is committed to reversing the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. "When you take all the cigarettes that have been put down, all the drivers who don't drink, all the seat belts buckled and all the children who stayed safe in their communities-they add up to a transformed society.
"Childhood wellness was in sharp decline," stating the "root cause of this decline: Childhood obesity." She addressed the fact that, "Kids eat too much of the wrong kinds of foods," and they "are not burning off those excess calories by getting enough exercise."
Five ways were outlined in which to combat the rise in childhood obesity: Limit a child's screen time; raise the nutrition standards in our schools; increase physical education in our schools; increase access to safe play; and improve the availability of healthy foods at home and in underserved communities.
The stabilization of childhood obesity rates may signal that this national epidemic is not an unstoppable force. When parents, government, schools, the food and beverage industries, other businesses, and the non-profit and philanthropic sectors work together, we can make progress, and we can reverse this epidemic.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years, the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime.