About

Dr. Derek Griffith is an innovator in the study of health equity, especially the social, economic, and political factors that impact the health of Black and Latino men. He develops new policy strategies to promote better health outcomes and health equity, particularly through community-based, individually tailored, and precision lifestyle interventions that aim to prevent and control obesity and chronic diseases in middle-aged Black men. His research focuses on the links between health and conceptions of masculinity among men of color, the influence of stress and coping processes on health disparities, and the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other variables in shaping men’s health behaviors and outcomes. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. Dr. Griffith has received recognition for his leadership in addressing the impacts of racism on health and well-being, including a citation from the president of the American Psychological Association. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Men’s Social & Community Health and is a member of the boards of the American Institute for Boys and Men, Global Action on Men’s Health, and the Movember Foundation. Prior to his current position at Penn, he was a professor of health management and policy at Georgetown University, founder and director of the Center for Men’s Health Equity, and co-director of the Racial Justice Institute. His academic background includes a Ph.D. and M.A. in clinical psychology from DePaul University and a B.A. in psychology and Afro-American studies from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Pathology
• Psychology
• Business
• Psychiatry
• Family medicine
• Medicine
• Gerontology
• Public relations
• Law

Selected publications

• 6 Expectant and New Black Fathers

  New York University Press eBooks · 2026-02-25

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Medical Education and Training Reimagined: Moving Structural Racism and Trustworthiness from the Margins to the Center

  Georgetown Scientific Research Journal · 2026-01-19

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Historically, medical education has not adequately addressed racial and ethnic inequities in healthcare or prepared physicians to earn patient trust, especially among marginalized communities. While some curricula cover health inequities and cultural competency, they focus more on encouraging patient trust than on teaching physicians how to demonstrate trustworthiness. By distinguishing between mistrust, distrust, and trust, we highlight a crucial gap in medical training: current training promotes patient trust without equipping physicians with the skills to earn it. The focus must shift from encouraging patients to trust the healthcare system to directly training providers in behaviors and systemic changes that demonstrate trustworthiness in order to gain trust. We propose a reorientation of medical education: one that emphasizes promoting trustworthiness and directly addresses the systemic and provider-level factors that have contributed to the erosion of patient confidence in medicine and their medical providers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Structural Advantage and White Men's Health and Well-Being.

  PubMed · 2026-04-30

  articleSenior author

  . Published online ahead of print April 30, 2026:e1-e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308430).

  PublisherDOI

• Seeing Brilliance Everywhere: Understanding the Life and Antiracism Work of Camara Phyllis Jones

  American Public Health Association eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Considerations and Context for Measuring and Addressing Racism: An Interview With David R. Williams

  American Public Health Association eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Funding and Defunding of NIH Research Should Be Based on Real Science and Not Politics or Amorphous Constructs

  American Journal of Public Health · 2025-10-09 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• II. ACKNOWLEDGING THE SHOULDERS ON WHICH WE STAND

  American Public Health Association eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  American Public Health Association eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• “You’ve got the door cracked enough that maybe they can’t quite get it closed again”: A qualitative study of trainers’ perceptions of the impacts of a two-day antiracism training

  SSM - Qualitative Research in Health · 2025-05-28

  articleOpen access

  Diversity training is commonly used by organizations, but evidence of positive impacts is mixed. Antiracism training, which focuses on structural racism, is largely unexamined in the diversity training literature. The Racial Equity Institute (REI) offers a widely implemented antiracism training called Phase 1 which has never been formally evaluated. As a part of larger community-based participatory research partnership, the research team interviewed REI trainers to understand their perceptions of the impacts of the REI training. We conducted qualitative in-depth interviews (n=15) with 58% of REI trainers who lead Phase 1 to understand their views on what participants gain from the workshop. We used thematic qualitative analysis to understand the changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors at the individual and organizational level that trainers hope to achieve, including the factors that influence the impact. The interviews revealed that REI trainers expected the training to change participants’ knowledge of and attitudes toward structural racism. Trainers anticipated specific but limited individual and collective behaviors to result from the training. The most important anticipated outcome was that participants learn to connect racial disparities to structural root causes. While the literature on diversity training suggests many possible individual, organization, and outcome-level impacts, REI trainers shared a more limited and consistent set of benefits for how individuals and organizations conceptualize and approach inequities. Investigating the perceptions of antiracism trainers about impacts is the first step in creating appropriate criteria for evaluating REI Phase 1 and building an evidence-base for antiracism training. • Documented the need for a typology of diversity trainings. • This typology should include expected impacts of each type of diversity training. • Antiracism trainers’ knowledge on impact of diversity training is undocumented • Expected impacts include knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and racial analysis. • Partnership with training organizations could address limitations of evidence.

  PublisherDOI

• Men's Health, Population Health, and President Trump 2.0: 5 Years After George Floyd

  International Journal of Men s Social and Community Health · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health

  NIH · $19.4M · 2016–2023

• NIH Grant R21DK095257

  NIH · $422k · 2015

Frequent coauthors

• Marino A. Bruce

  81 shared

• Roland J. Thorpe

  Johns Hopkins University

  64 shared

• Amytis Towfighi

  25 shared

• Lesli E. Skolarus

  Northwestern University

  25 shared

• Erica L. Littlejohn

  25 shared

• Spero M. Manson

  University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

  25 shared

• Erin M. Bergner

  Vanderbilt Health

  22 shared

• Julie Ober Allen

  University of Notre Dame

  22 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology

  DePaul University

• M.A., Clinical Psychology

  DePaul University

• B.A., Psychology and Afro-American Studies

  University of Maryland at College Park

Awards & honors

• Citation from the president of the American Psychological As…