Lisa I. Iezzoni, MD, MSc
Harvard Medical School, Health Policy Research Center at the Mongan Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital
Lisa I. Iezzoni, MD, MSc, is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and based at the Health Policy Research Center at the Mongan Institute, which is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital. She has dedicated her career to shining a light on inequities in health care that affect people with disabilities.
Dr. Iezzoni launched her disability-related research with a 1996 Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That work culminated in her 2003 book, When Walking Fails: Mobility Problems of Adults With Chronic Conditions.
Over her career, Dr. Iezzoni has produced seven books and some 350 articles, thought pieces, and research reports that describe barriers to health care equity for people with disabilities and approaches to overcoming them. She employs rigorous methods to produce quantitative evidence about inequitable care and outcomes for disabled people. At the same time, her qualitative studies, informed by her own lived experience as a wheelchair user, have given voice to people with disabilities, leading many health care professionals and policymakers to rethink their approaches toward this historically marginalized population.
Dr. Iezzoni has served on many national committees and advisory boards, such as for the National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Medicine, National Quality Forum, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program, National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, as well as the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020, which advised the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). From 2012 to 2013, Dr. Iezzoni chaired the U.S. Access Board’s Medical Diagnostic Equipment Accessibility Standards Advisory Committee, which provided advice on making medical diagnostic equipment accessible to people with disabilities. The HHS cited Dr. Iezzoni’s research multiple times in proposed federal regulations issued in September 2023 (which were finalized in May 2024) to update disability nondiscrimination rules in health care under Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.
Raymond Curry, MD, FACP, senior associate dean for educational affairs at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, describes Dr. Iezzoni as “the single most prominent scholar researching, writing, and advocating for disability health care and policy issues,” adding that “she is widely recognized as the leading ‘go-to’ expert by federal agencies considering disability-related inequities in health and health care and disability policy.”
Dr. Iezzoni earned a BA in anthropology from Duke University in 1976, an MSc in health policy and management from Harvard School of Public Health in 1978 (now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), and an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1984. In 2000, Dr. Iezzoni was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2022, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association’s Disability Section.