Holmes appointed to National Advisory Committee on rural health

August 9, 2019

Dr. Mark Holmes

Mark Holmes, PhD, professor of health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and director of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, recently was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services.

He was appointed by Alex Azar, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Committee is an independent advisory group focused on health care challenges in rural America, and Holmes will serve a four-year term.

“I am delighted to be selected to this important committee,” Holmes said. “My years at Gillings and the Sheps Center have instilled the importance of ensuring that our research and scholarship is better when we are actively engaged in real world policy. This committee offers a tremendous opportunity to translate our research to policy and strengthen our research by better understanding key policy issues facing rural populations.”

Holmes brings a wealth of relevant experience to the new role, as he also is director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center and the co-director of the Program on Health Care Economics and Finance at the Sheps Center.

His research interests include hospital finance, rural health, workforce health, health policy and patient-centered outcomes research.

In 2014, Holmes received the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty. In 2015, he was named Outstanding Researcher by the National Rural Health Association. Previously, he was vice president of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, where he gained experience in North Carolina health policy.

Contact the Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@listserv.unc.edu.