Jerry C. Johnson, MD is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and a member of the Internal Advisory Board of the University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center. As a board member and past President of the American Geriatrics Society, Dr. Johnson was instrumental in the formation of the Ethnogeriatrics Committee of the Society, which has since developed tools of cultural competence to be disseminated and evaluated in a variety of settings.
In an investigative role, Dr. Johnson is involved in several projects related to health disparities that involve community participatory research methods and comprehensive community education programs. He chairs the Steering Committee of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, a joint project of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh VA Medical Centers. He is a co-investigator of the CHORD project aimed at reducing disparities in hypertension among African Americans and the Population Studies of Health Disparities, a prostate cancer related project. His ongoing study of African American elders aims to determine how they view culturally competent care.