Dr. Derek M. Griffith

(Health Fellows & Scholars)
Associate Professor, The Center for Medicine, Health, and Society
Nashville, Tennessee
United States

Focus Areas

Health
Disparities
Racial Equity & Healing
Racial Equity & Healing

Biography

Derek M. Griffith is an Associate Professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Griffith is a leading social scientist focused on social influences on men’s health and racial and ethnic health disparities. He primarily focuses on identifying and addressing psychosocial, cultural and environmental determinants of African American men’s health and well-being. Funded by several institutes within the National Institutes of Health and foundations such as the American Cancer Society and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dr. Griffith specializes in informing, developing and testing interventions to improve African American men’s lifestyle behaviors and chronic disease risk, morbidity and mortality, including reducing obesity and increasing healthy eating, physical activity and screening, often using a community-based participatory research approach. His research has been featured in such news outlets as MSN, NPR, Time Magazine, US News & World Report and USA Today.