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Biography for Susan Dentzer
Editor-in-Chief, Health Affairs.
SUSAN DENTZER is the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, the nation's leading peer-reviewed journal focused on the intersection of health, health care and health policy in the United States and internationally. One of the nation's most respected health and health policy journalists, she is an on-air analyst on health issues with the PBS NewsHour, and a frequent guest and commentator on such National Public Radio shows as This American Life and The Diane Rehm Show. Dentzer is also an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations.
At Health Affairs, Dentzer oversees the journal's team of nearly 30 editors and other staff in producing the monthly publication and web site. Health Affairs has been described by the Washington Post as the "Bible" of health policy. Its articles and their authors are frequently cited in the Congressional Record and in congressional testimony as well as in the news media. The Health Affairs web site recorded 21.5 million page views in 2009.
Before joining Health Affairs in May 2009, Dentzer was on-air Health Correspondent at the PBS NewsHour. From 1998 to 2008, she led the show's unit providing in-depth coverage of health care, health policy and Social Security. Prior to joining the PBS NewsHour, she was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, and previously was a senior writer covering business and economic news at Newsweek.
Dentzer's other work in television has included appearances as a regular analyst or commentator on CNN and The McLaughlin Group. Her writing has also earned her several fellowships, including a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, where she studied health economics and policy, and a U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Fellowship, during which she researched the effects of the rapidly aging Japanese population.
Dentzer is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation's leading experts on social insurance, is a fellow of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan research institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest.
Dentzer chairs the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council, the largest membership organization of groups involved in global health, and is a member of the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization providing relief to refugees and displaced persons around the world. She chairs the IRC board's Program Committee, which oversees the organization's activities in resettling refugees in the United States and in dealing with refugees and displaced persons in roughly 25 countries. A graduate of Dartmouth and holder of an honorary master of arts from the institution, Ms. Dentzer is a Dartmouth trustee emerita and chaired the Dartmouth Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004. She currently serves on the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School.
Dentzer, her husband and their three children live in the Washington, DC area.
