This week on Rural Health Leadership Radio, we’re talking about improving health outcomes and building community capacity. We are having that conversation with Dr. Sameer Vohra, Founding Chair of the Department of Population Science and Policy at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.

“…we talk about rural but even in our government definition there isn’t a clear designation of what is rural.”

~Dr. Sameer Vohra

Dr. Vohra was born and raised in Chicago, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Northwestern University. He then went on to receive a dual degree from Southern Illinois University’s Medicine and Law Dual Degree Program, as well as traveling to India on a United States Department of State Fulbright Scholarship. Dr. Vohra has a passion for improving people’s health as well as the one-on-one connection that comes with being a physician, fueled by his desire to understand how he could work to improve society’s health. Dr. Vohra would go on to attend the University of Chicago where he was the first to follow the pediatric public policy track, where he trained as a general pediatrician and also received advanced public policy training.

“We know that in our rural community we have to work together because the cavalry isn’t coming.”

~Dr. Sameer Vohra

Dr. Sameer Vohra settled back into Southern Illinois University and began his journey into population health and science, taking steps to make a concrete difference in the communities he served. He was able to lead the creation of the Office of Population Science and Policy to determine if there would be support, funding, and interest in the community to launch the office as an academic department. The Department of Population Science and Policy was officially launched in July 2018, and is only one of sixteen such departments in the country.