Rachel Vreeman, MD, MS

Dr. Rachel Vreeman is the Chair of the Department of Health System Design and Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Director of the Arnhold Institute for Global Health. She is also a Professor of Pediatrics. A pediatrician and health services researcher, Dr. Vreeman has extensive history of leadership building Global Health research programs to generate the evidence needed to improve care systems worldwide. Her own research focuses on improving the care of children and adolescents living with HIV within resource-limited settings.

Dr. Vreeman chairs the Global Pediatric Working Group for the International Epidemiologic Databases Evaluating AIDS (IeDEA) consortium, a global consortium of HIV care programs funded by the National Institutes of Health that compiles data for more than one million people living with HIV. She is also a standing member of the NIH Scientific Review Group on HIV/AIDS Intra- and Inter-personal Determinants and Behavioral Interventions and on the scientific advisory committee for the International AIDS Society’s Collaborative Initiative for Pediatric HIV Education and Research (CIPHER).

Dr. Vreeman is an international expert on children’s adherence to HIV therapy, supporting disclosure of HIV status, HIV-related stigma, and mental health and other behavioral challenges for adolescents living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. She is the immediate past Director of Research for the AMPATH Research Network in Kenya. The AMPATH partnership provides HIV treatment for over 150,000 patients in Kenya and is building a comprehensive healthcare model in Kenya in partnership with the Kenya Ministry of Health. Dr. Vreeman now leads Mount Sinai’s participation in the AMPATH Consortium.

Dr. Vreeman graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University. She received her MD from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and completed her internship, residency, and a chief residency in Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She also completed a fellowship in Children’s Health Services Research and a master's degree in clinical research at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Vreeman served as the Director of Research for the Indiana University Center for Global Health from 2014-2019.

In addition to her academic research pursuits, Dr. Vreeman is the co-author of three popular books debunking medical myths and applying evidence to the (often false) ideas people hold about their bodies and health.  These best-selling books, Don’t Swallow Your Gum: Myths, Half-truths, and Outright Lies about your Body and Health, Don’t Cross Your Eyes… They’ll Get Stuck Like That! And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked, and Don’t Put THAT in THERE! And 69 Other Sex Myths Debunked, provide light-hearted reviews of the science that explains why so many of those weird andworrisome things we think about our bodies are mistaken. Dr. Vreeman’s myth-busting research has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Newsweek, and many other publications. She has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, CNN, Dr. Oz, BBC News Hour and many other national and international television and radio shows.