By Dana Talesnik
Dr. Lisa Cooper
The contrast was stark. Some kids grew up in spacious homes and attended private schools, while many others lived in shacks without electricity or running water. That was the childhood scene for Dr. Lisa Cooper, director, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. Growing up in West Africa, she was among the fortunate, but she couldn’t ignore, and remained haunted by, the dire poverty of many of her fellow citizens.
“Those children I saw around me in Liberia were the faces of health disparities,” said Cooper, a professor at Johns Hopkins University schools of medicine, nursing and public health. “I was acutely aware of this, even as a young child, and I always wondered what it would be like if we all had similar opportunities to have a good life.”