Dr. Tiffany Green is a nationally recognized economist, population health scientist, and science communicator whose mission is to reduce and eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in in reproductive health. She is currently Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also a Temple Center for Public Health Law Research Fellow and is a University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health Centennial Scholar. Dr. Green earned her Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.A. in economics from Florida A&M University.
Dr. Green’s primary research agenda is motivated by a persistent unsolved puzzle: how and why Black people with the capacity for pregnancy experience the worst reproductive health access and outcomes of any racial/ethnic group—and what innovative solutions might ameliorate these persistent inequities. Her work is published in an array of scientific journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Demographic Research, and Economics & Human Biology. Currently, Dr. Green’s research explores three overlapping but distinct dimensions of societal inequality. First, she and her collaborators are investigating the mechanisms linking structural and institutional-level racism, fertility, and pregnancy-related outcomes. Second, Dr. Green is examining the relationships between abortion restrictions and reproductive health disparities, as well as abortion-related preferences among people of color. Third, she is leading the first-ever evaluation of Birth Cost Recovery—a Wisconsin policy allowing counties to recoup Medicaid birthing costs from unwed fathers on birth outcomes. Dr. Green is also partnering with Black woman-led community organizations and the UW Survey Center to develop, validate and pilot test a novel survey among low-income Black birthing parents potentially affected by this policy.
As a science communicator, Dr. Green is dedicated to making complex issues accessible to policymakers and lay public. She has used her expertise to promote evidence-based policy via legislative testimony and participation on panels for legislators. She has provided interviews for numerous local and national media outlets on reproductive equity and the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Green’s public scholarship, such as her Scientific American op-ed about the challenges with relying on implicit bias to improve inequities, has been cited in the New York Times, Slate, and Forbes.
Dr. Green strives to teach and mentor the next generation of physicians and population health scientists. Her goal is to improve the rigor, innovation, and relevance of science by centering the perspectives of historically excluded communities related to race/ethnicity, gender, disability, and neurodiversity. The Governor’s Office of Virginia awarded Dr. Green the first Maggie Award for Future Female Innovators for mentoring her undergraduate students in developing an app for Hispanic/Latinx pregnant people. She recently taught “Race in American Obstetrics and Gynecology”, one of the first medical education courses in the United States to address the role of race in the development of American obstetrics and gynecology.
Dr. Green actively serves in local and state community organizations to address reproductive health disparities. She is a member of the Wisconsin State Maternal Mortality Review Team and proudly serves as inaugural Co-Chair of the Black Maternal & Child Health Alliance of Dane County—a coalition committed to ensuring that Black birthing people and babies are free to reach their highest potential.
TOPICS: Race, Women& Girls of Color, Health, Policy, Economics