21 articles
Drew E. Altman
Drew E. Altman is an American health policy expert who founded and has led KFF for more than 30 years and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Elizabeth Glaser
Elizabeth Glaser (1947-1994), American AIDS activist, contracted HIV from a 1981 blood transfusion, passed it to children Ariel and Jake, and co-founded the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, renamed EGPAF after her death; known for her 1992 DNC speech.
Enriqueta C. Bond
Enriqueta C. Bond is an American health scientist and philanthropy leader who served as the first full-time president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a private medical science foundation, from 1994 to 2008.
FoodPharmer
FoodPharmer, the online identity of Revant Himatsingka, is an Indian health advocate who reviews food labels, leading to regulatory changes and the launch of his clean-label brand, Only What's Needed, in 2025.
Frédéric Ferrière
Frédéric-Auguste Ferrière (1848–1924) was a Swiss physician and Red Cross vice-president who founded the civilian section of the International Prisoners-of-War Agency in Geneva during World War I.
Georg Bonne
Georg Bonne (1859–1945) was a German country doctor in Klein-Flottbek and Nienstedten on the Elbe, known as the "Engel von Nienstedten" and a lifelong campaigner for the river's cleanliness.
Jennifer L. Howse
Jennifer L. Howse is a public health leader who led the March of Dimes from 1990 for more than two decades, launching its 2003 Prematurity Campaign.
Li Wenliang (李文亮)
Li Wenliang (李文亮, 1986–2020) was a Wuhan Central Hospital ophthalmologist who warned classmates on WeChat on 30 December 2019 about SARS-like cases, was reprimanded by police for rumors, died of COVID-19 on 7 February 2020, and was posthumously declared a martyr.
Lisbeth B. Schorr
Lisbeth B. Schorr is an American social policy and public health figure, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy and a lecturer at Harvard.
Mamphela A. Ramphele
Mamphela A. Ramphele, born Mamphela Aletta Ramphele in 1947, is a South African physician and anti-apartheid activist who co-founded the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko and led the University of Cape Town.
Margaret E. Mahoney
Margaret E. Mahoney (1924–2011) was an American philanthropy leader who was the first woman to head a major U.S. foundation, as president of the Commonwealth Fund.
Michael Lerner (public health leader)
Michael Lerner (born 1943) is an American public health leader and political scientist, co-founder and president of Commonweal in Bolinas, California, and a 1984 MacArthur Fellow.
Nkosi Johnson
Nkosi Johnson (Xolani Nkosi, 1989-2001), South African child born with HIV and AIDS activist; foster son of Gail Johnson, founder with him of Nkosi's Haven, famed for his 2000 Durban AIDS conference speech.
Ophelia Dahl
Ophelia Dahl, daughter of Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal, co-founded Partners In Health in 1987 with Paul Farmer and others, led it as executive director 2001-2015, and chaired its board from 2002 to 2025; TIME100 2024, Radcliffe Medal 2023.
Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey
Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey is an American geriatrician who was president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 2003 to 2017, its first woman and first African American leader.
Robert Rayford
Robert Rayford (1953–1969), St. Louis teenager, first known HIV/AIDS case in the United States; died 1969, confirmed by 1987 testing of preserved blood samples showing HIV proteins.
Ron Woodroof
Ron Woodroof (1950–1992), Dallas electrician diagnosed with AIDS in the mid-1980s, founded the Dallas Buyers Club in 1988, smuggling non-FDA-approved drugs from Mexico and Japan; subject of the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club.
Ruby P. Hearn
Ruby P. Hearn is an American health philanthropy executive who was a vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, directing national child and adolescent health programs.
Ryan White
Ryan White (1971–1990) was an Indiana teenager with hemophilia who contracted AIDS from contaminated Factor VIII treatment, was barred from school in Kokomo, and became the namesake of the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federal HIV care program.
Timothy Ray Brown
Timothy Ray Brown, the "Berlin Patient," was the first person cured of HIV, via two 2007–2008 CCR5-delta32 stem cell transplants in Berlin for leukemia; he died September 29, 2020 of leukemia recurrence.
Violet Affleck
Violet Affleck (born 2005), daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, is an American public health advocate against mask bans and for clean indoor air; she spoke at the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2024 and at a 2025 UN Healthy Indoor Air event after contracting a post-viral condition in 2019.