Dr. Peter Shin Joins NACHC Leadership Team as Chief Science Officer

Bethesda, MD - Peter Shin, PhD, MPH, will join the leadership team of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) as Chief Science Officer (CSO). Dr. Shin is a distinguished health care services researcher and policy expert, with an extensive body of work highlighting the critical role community health centers play in advancing health equity and addressing health disparities.

Dr. Shin will be NACHC's first-ever CSO, and underscores NACHC's commitment to providing research- and data-driven solutions to health challenges facing this nation. Dr. Shin will provide thought leadership and direction for vital research on how community health centers deliver on the "quintuple aim" - improve health outcomes, enhance patient experiences, elevate workforce experiences, and lower the total cost of care, with health equity at the center. Dr. Shin brings expert insights into workforce dynamics, quality of care, patient and community health, and cost effectiveness research.

His ability to effectively translate research into impactful education, practice, and especially policy, as evidenced by numerous citations in research journals and by government agencies (including the Congressional Research Service, CMS, and HRSA) and in federal court documents, will be instrumental in advancing NACHC's mission to support community health centers and the diverse populations they serve.

Dr. Shin spent over three decades at George Washington University's (GWU) Milken Institute School of Public Health. There he served as a tenured associate professor of health policy and management and was the founding Research Director of the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health. While at GWU, Dr. Shin successfully secured tens of millions in research grants and helped launch the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health, which established groundbreaking collaborations with health centers, Primary Care Associations, research partners, and NACHC.

Dr. Shin has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed journals, blogs, government reports, and briefs on safety net financing and economic impacts, health policy, workforce, primary care integration, health information technology, and social drivers of health. Dr. Shin has many seminal works, including "Medicaid and Community Health Centers at 50: An Enduring Relationship Essential for Health System Transformation," published in Health Affairs, which underscored the urgent need for payment methods that better reward quality of care and ongoing critical funding support for community health centers to address the complex primary health care and social health needs of the communities they serve. This influential publication, along with many others on alternative health center payment models and value-based approaches, serves as a key reference for other researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers. His collaborative research on health center cost-savings and economic contributions is particularly notable, reinforcing the importance of sustained investment to policymakers.

Dr. Shin received a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Oberlin College and a Masters of Public Health and a Doctor of Public Policy from George Washington University.

Dr. Shin will officially join NACHC on August 16, 2024.

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NACHC is the leading innovative change agent collaborating with affiliates and partners to advance Community Health Centers as the foundation of an equitable health care system free from disparities, and built on accessible, patient-governed, high-quality, integrated primary care.