Identifying social determinants of health to improve individual and population health and advance health equity is a major research emphasis in NYU Langone’s Division of General Pediatrics. Arthur H. Fierman, MD, is an experienced senior advisor on a wide variety of research endeavors involving high-risk populations and a leader in the field of pediatric primary care and prevention. His research interests in general pediatrics include health services with a focus on the effects of poverty on the health and wellbeing of children. Most recently, his work with Suzy Tomopoulos, MD, and NYU Grossman School of Medicine fellows in academic general pediatrics focuses on the redesign of pediatric healthcare practice to address poverty-related social determinants of health.

As the chief of general pediatrics, Dr. Fierman has designed and implemented social determinants of health screening and referral processes in the pediatric clinic at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue. Examples of related research include addressing immunization delivery and the health and development of homeless children; clinical research in the identification of effective strategies to promote early childhood development and literacy; improving doctor–patient communication by addressing health literacy; the study of factors contributing to obesity in early childhood; design and testing of a prenatal and early childhood obesity prevention program; and testing the effectiveness of a school-based health risk screening and counseling program for adolescents with obesity.