Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care

Dayna Bowen Matthew is a scholar of law and expert in public health who specializes in the study of racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States. Matthew received her Bachelor of Arts from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her Doctor of Law title from the University of Virginia School of Law. Furthermore, she obtained her PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Colorado at Denver.

Currently, Matthew is a law professor and, since July 2020, serves as the Dean of George Washington University Law School, focusing on health law and civil rights. In her academic research and advocacy work, she combines legal analysis with public health frameworks, seeking to address the systemic inequities in healthcare delivery and health outcomes that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. She is a longstanding advocate for vulnerable communities and, along with her legal and academic work, she has been involved in many projects that seek to address the health and environmental discrimination of BIPOC populations.

Based on her research, legal practice, and advocacy work, Matthew published her first book Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Healthcare, in 2015. In the book, as in many of her public lectures, Matthew argues that implicit bias among healthcare providers significantly contributes to the disparities in treatment and health outcomes seen between white patients and patients of color.