Dr. Patricia O’Brien-Richardson is a public health scholar, author, and speaker
examining how policies, practices, culture, and systems shape who gets the opportunity to live a healthy life.
Through research, teaching, speaking, and more than two decades of leadership in the United States and abroad, Dr. Patti helps audiences move beyond simply recognizing health disparities to understanding and addressing the systems that produce them.
Author of the forthcoming textbook
Health Disparities and Social Justice: How Policies, Practices, and Injustice Shape Health in America
Cognella | December 2026
Scholar. Author. Public Health Leader. Speaker.
Dr. Patti brings together academic scholarship, executive leadership, community engagement, and global public health experience to examine and help audiences understand the complex forces shaping health and health equity.
20+YEARS
8 COUNTRIES
8 COUNTRIES
Public Health, Education & Leadership
8 COUNTRIES
8 COUNTRIES
8 COUNTRIES
Global Health & Community-Based Leadership
RESEARCH + POLICY
RESEARCH + POLICY
RESEARCH + POLICY
Scholarship Advancing Health Equity & Social Justice
TEXTBOOK AUTHOR
RESEARCH + POLICY
RESEARCH + POLICY
Health Disparities & Social Justice
Cognella • December 2026
Recent Clients
Keynotes: Conversations That Move Health Equity Forward
Dr. Patti brings research, policy, and real-world experience to the stage, helping audiences understand the forces shaping health inequities and what individuals, institutions, and communities can do to create meaningful change.
Who Gets to Be Healthy?
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
How Policies, Practices, and Injustice Shape Health in America
Health is shaped long before a patient enters a doctor's office. Dr. Patti examines how policy, place, culture, identity, and systems influences who has access to the conditions necessary for good health, and challenges audiences to consider what it will take to create more equitable systems.
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
The Impact of Culture, Identity, and Discrimination on Health
Drawing from research and contemporary public health issues, Dr. Patti explores how bias, discrimination, cultural experiences, and social identites can become consequential determinants of health, and what healthcare institutions, leaders, and communities can do differently.
The Future of Health Equity
When Bias Becomes a Health Risk
The Future of Health Equity
AI, Policy, Power, and the Changing Healthcare Landscape
As healthcare rapidly evolves, new technologies and shifting policies bring both opportunities and risks for health equity. Dr. Patti examines how artificial intelligence, policy decisions, and emerging healthcare practices may reduce disparities, or unintentionally deepen them, and what leaders should be considering now.
Coming December 2026
A New Textbook for a Changing Health Landscape
Health disparities are not simply the result of individual choices or access to healthcare. They are shaped by policies, practices, history, culture, identity, economics, and systems of power that influence who has the opportunity to achieve optimal health.
In her forthcoming textbook, Health Disparities and Social Justice: How Policies, Practices, and Injustice Shape Health in America, Dr. Patti connects foundational public health concepts with the contemporary issues today's students and future health professionals are being called to understand, question, and address.
This website uses cookies.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.
HOW TO LEAD WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF
Get my research-based guide to preventing stress, burnout, & anxiety at work