Claire Brindis, DrPH, is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy (on Recall), Department of Pediatrics and Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health Sciences and Emerita Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Brindis is also the Co-Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Resource Center(http://nahic.ucsf.edu). She is also a Founding Director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and PRL-IHPS, UCSF. She serves as a Core Faculty of the ARCHES Program (Advancing Research Careers of Historically Excluded Scholars), leading its evaluation efforts, as well as Senior Advisor to the UC Center on Climate, Health and Equity. An Elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine, she serves as the Vice-Chair of its Council and also concurrently Chairs the Standing Committee on Reproductive Health, Equity. and Society for the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine in Washington, DC, comprised of experts evaluating the health, social, and economic implications of access to reproductive health care in the United States and globally in order to inform related program and activity development at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/standing-committee-on-reproductive-health-equity-and-society).

Incorporating a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, as well as community participatory research, Dr. Brindis’ research focuses on program evaluation and the translation of research into policy at the local, state, and national level. As a bilingual, bi-cultural researcher, Dr. Brindis’ research and personal commitment focus on ameliorating the impact of social, health, and economic disparities among ethnic/racial populations, with a particular focus on women, young adults, and adolescents and reproductive health, as well as Latino/a health. For example, in the area of reproductive health, Dr. Brindis led a multidisciplinary evaluation team evaluating California’s Office of Family Planning’s Family PACT program, a Federal 1115 Medicaid waiver. Evaluation findings indicate that this program has successfully served annually nearly 1.3 million women and men, helping to avert approximately 300,000 pregnancies per year annually. For every dollar spent on the program, an estimated savings of $5.83 in medical and social costs is realized through the prevention of unintended pregnancies up to five years after birth.

Research interests also include tracking the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on adolescents, young adults, and women, including barriers encountered in enrolling these and other marginalized populations, assuring the delivery of confidential care in an era of electronic health care records, effective substance abuse treatment strategies, with a special lens on women’s health, and research on the health and mental health needs of Dreamers (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA). Previous research projects include evaluations of the state of California’s comprehensive teenage pregnancy prevention programs, the UCSF Pre-term Birth Initiative, and the effectiveness of water policies in California schools.

Throughout these and other projects, Dr. Brindis is committed to the translation of research into action, as well as pursuing strategies for closing the gap between evidence-based innovation and its application to policy and programs. As a result, within the interface of research and public policy, Dr. Brindis is often called upon to help a variety of community groups, local, state, and the federal government, and international entities in helping to translate research findings for purposes of policy planning and development of new program interventions. As a policy advisor to federal, state and local policymakers and private foundations, her research has been utilized extensively in the planning of state and federal initiatives, including the implementation of the first school-based health center in California, the development of statewide adolescent pregnancy prevention initiatives, the development of the first California strategic plan for adolescent health, as well as at the federal level, the development of essential health benefits for women’s preventive health services. Dr. Brindis currently is conducting a qualitative assessment of UCSF's Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, as well as an evaluation of the ARCHES Program (Advancing the Research Careers of Historically Excluded Scholars).

Apart from numerous peer-review journal articles, Dr. Brindis, along with the UCSF Center on Social Disparities in Health and the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, completed research and developed a film aimed at policymakers and communities, entitled, “A Question of Hope: Reducing Latina Teen Childbearing in California” (http://bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/videos/video-lo-1.html;) Spanish version: http://bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/videos/video-lo-3.html). In addition, she has also co-authored a monograph on implementing the Healthy People 2010 Adolescent Health Objectives, with the CDC and the Federal Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, “Improving Adolescent Health: A Guidebook for States and Communities” (http://nahic.ucsf.edu) and co-authored a report “Creating a Health Research and Policy Agenda for Im/migration Between Mexico and California” http://bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/publications. Dr. Brindis co-authored “Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation: Theory and Practice (Stanford Press, 2017).

Dr. Brindis is past chair of the Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association (2003-2004) and President of the Board of Directors for Advocates for Youth, Washington D.C. (2003-2005). Dr. Brindis has served on many expert panels, including the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Pediatric Health and Health Care Quality Measures, the Committee on Preventive Services for Women, the Committee on the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults, and the Committee on Neurobiological and Social-Behavioral Research on Adolescent Health. At UCSF, she is past chair of the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women. She is the recipient of numerous state and national awards, including the California Department of Health Services with the 2000 Beverlee A. Myers Award for Excellence in Public Health, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, Washington, DC, with the annual 2001 John C. MacQueen Lecture Award, the 2005 Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau Director's Award: “In recognition of Contributions Made to the Health of Infants, Mothers, Children, Adolescents & Children with Special Needs”, the UCSF’s Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women in 2009, election to the IOM (now National Academy of Medicine) in 2010 and elected to the NAM Council in 2019, the selection in 2012 as Alumni Hall of Fame awardee from the UCLA School of Public Health, the 2014 Carl Schultz Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association, UCSF’s Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award in 2016, and in 2019, selected as one of the UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health’s most influential alumni on the occasion of its 75th Anniversary of its establishment and the Holly Smith Award for Exceptional Service to the UCSF School of Medicine. In 2021, she received the 2020 Pioneer Award from the National School-Based Assembly and the 2020 APHA Martha May Eliot Award in Maternal and Child Health, followed by 2021Title V Lifetime Achievement Award from the Federal Bureau of Maternal and Child Health.
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