The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced the appointment of Alicia Fernandez, MD, and Ericka Gibson, MD, MPH, as new members beginning January 2025, bringing expertise in health equity and maternal health care to the independent volunteer panel.
Dr. Fernandez, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), offers extensive experience in health care equity research, particularly focusing on language, literacy, and cultural barriers in cardiometabolic disease care. She currently serves as Associate Dean of Population Health and Health Equity as well as Director of the UCSF Latinx Center of Excellence.
Dr. Gibson, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist at the Southeast Permanente Medical Group at Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta, specializes in maternal health outcomes and quality improvement. As Physician Program Director for Perinatal Safety and Quality, she developed the Cocoon Pregnancy Care Model, an innovative program designed to reduce health disparities and optimize maternal outcomes.
Both appointees have significant academic credentials. Dr. Fernandez, recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2024, completed her medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine after finishing her undergraduate studies at Yale University. Her research has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Russell Sage Foundation, and The Greenwall Foundation.
Dr. Gibson earned her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her MPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Sommer Scholar. She leads both the Perinatal Patient Safety team at Southeast Permanente Medical Group and the Kaiser Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee, where she advocates for race-stratified data collection and discrimination evaluation tools in case reviews.
The new members will serve 4-year terms on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, contributing to evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, and preventive medications.
Reference: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Drs. Fernandez and Gibson join the Task Force. Published January 2025.
