Ijeoma Opara
Residency year
2012Narrative bio
Dr. Ijeoma (EE-GEE-OH-MAH) Nnodim (NN-OH-DIM) Opara (OH-PAH-RAH) is a double-board certified physician scientist activist and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Wayne Health. Her mission in life is to dismantle white supremacist delusion by eliminating antiBlack racism in medicine, healthcare, and public health while centering and celebrating Black brilliance, abundance, and joy. She is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded health equity community engagement implementation researcher and the founding director of the “Health Equity and Justice in Medicine” (HEJiM) initiative, co-founding director of Wayne State University Global Health Alliance, and co-created the Global Urban Health & Equity curriculum. She is a recipient of a highly competitive NIH award for a training program in Equity in Population Health AI: Beyond the EHR training program, funded through the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity And Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) and the Science Collaborative for Health Disparities and Artificial Intelligence Bias Reduction (ScHARe).
She is an internationally renowned award-winning educator, scholar, and thought leader in antiracism and anti-oppression, decolonization, and Black liberation and focuses on the joy, abundance, and brilliance of Blackness. She was a member of the Biden White House Office of Public Engagement Healthcare Leaders in Minority Health where she advised on antiracism, health justice, and health equity, Racism and Health section editor for PLOS Global Public Health journal, and member of the National Health Equity Collective. She is a leader in the Michigan State Medical Society Taskforce on Health Equity, the Governor’s Roundtable on Reproductive Justice, the state of Michigan Pharmacy & Therapeutics committee, and a community health influencer for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. As CEO and founder of OparaSpeaks, she inspires and equips individuals and organizations with the tools to transform their systems into antiracist, just, equitable, and nurturing environments where Black brilliance thrives. She founded and directs the Opara Equity, Justice, & Joy lab and mentors hundreds of trainees, youth, and community members in community-based and -led implementation action research. She is also co-chair of the Detroit End Race Based Medicine Taskforce, Canada-US coalition to End Race Correction in Healthcare, and The North American Conference to End Race Based Medicine. She is a renowned speaker, consultant, coach, & facilitator and hosts an online think tank: Antiracism in Action Roundtable #AIART, a interdisciplinary community of Black leadership to eliminate antiBlackness from medicine & healthcare, and public health.
She is daughter to Dr. & Mrs. Nnodim; mom to Ugochinyere (OO-GO-CHI-N-YEHREH), Oruebubechi (OR-OO-AY-BOO-BAY-CHI), and Chimamanda (CHI-MAH-MAN-DAH), and 2 cats, Midnight and Good Night; and a loving partner to Mr. Nkemjika (NN-KEH-M-JI-KAH) Opara.
Areas of research
COVID19 testing and behavioral health initiative for the homeless, Detroit Health Department
Principal Investigator, Social Determinants of Health & Health Equity Curriculum: Multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary project to assess resident and faculty knowledge of social determinants of health, implement curriculum and assess curricular impact.
Principal Investigator, Freedom Cares Initiative (FCI): Development and Evaluation of an Asset-based Community-Driven Comprehensive Health Education Initiative to address Refugee by assessing baseline health status, level of health literacy, and design community-led interventions to improve health and healthcare literacy and self-sufficiency in health management.
Co-Investigator, Hopefulness and Resiliency in Pregnant women and Providers: International Bidirectional project to assess hopefulness and build resiliency among Rwandan and Detroit pregnant women to improvie maternal Health outcomes and their healthcare providers by adapting and implementing a Rwandan-originated hopefulness intervention. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Principal Investigator, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) NEXT award: To develop “Healing Between the Lines” curriculum in response to the legacy of Redlining on the health outcomes of communities in Detroit
Abstracts
Kristiana Kaufmann,…Ijeoma Nnodim Opara (2019). Creating the Global and Urban Health and Equity Scholars Program using the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Toolkit. International Journal of Academic Medicine, 5, 198-239
Shah, Pranav,… Nnodim, Ijeoma MD (2018). Social media meets social determinants: An Innovative resident curriculum in social determinants of health. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 33, S669-S670
Ducharme, A. (2016). Clopidogrel-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura presenting as colitis. Journal of General Internal Medicine , 31, S583-S584
Committees
Educational Research Lead, Education and competency committee, Consortium of Universities for Global Health (National, International)
WSU Institutional Delegate, Consortium of Universities for Global Health
National Academic Adviser
Founding Board of Director and Accreditation Council for International Medical Programs and American College of Academic International Medicine (National, International)
Advisory Committee, Women Leaders in Global Health (International)
Implicit Bias Training Advisory Taskforce, State of Michigan (State)
Chair, Social Determinants of Health Committee, SEMCME (Regional)
Public health committee, Wayne County Medical Society (County)
Director of Education in Social Determinants of Health, Detroit Medical Center for Quality Improvement (Local)
Presentations
- “Creating Culturally relevant asset-based interventions to address breastfeeding in Black communities”
National Maternal Health PCOR Network Symposium, Health Resources in Action, Boston, MA - Tale of a wailing wall: History of injustice and impact of health
Department of Emergency Medicine, Detroit Medical Center, Detroit - “Unequal Cut: Surgical disparities”
Department of Surgery, Grand Rounds, Detroit Medical Center, Detroit - “Teaching Social Determinants of Health in GME”
ACGME Educational Conference, San Diego, California, CA - “Challenges of teaching Global Health in the era of COVID-19"
Midwestern University of Global Health, University of Wisconsin, WI - Decolonizing Global Health”
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD - "Systemic Racism is Public Health Emergency – The case of Redlining”
Keynote Speaker, Michigan United, Detroit, MI - “When Help is Harm”
Schoolcraft College, Livonia, MI - “Why Neurologists Care about Social Determinants of Health”
Department of Neurology Ground Rounds, Detroit Medical Center - “Interrupting Microaggressions Training Workshop”
Office of Community Engaged Research, Wayne State University Department of Family Medicine - “Implementing a Social Determinants of Health Curriculum in Graduate Medical Education”
Workshop Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education, Educational Conference, San Diego CA - “A Rose is just a Rose…Global health is Local health”
Consortium of Universities for Global Health Faculty, San Jose, Costa Rica - “The Intersection of Social Determinants of Health in Detroit and Rwanda”
The Ihangane Project, Ruli, Rwanda - “Creating an Interprofessional Competency-Based the Global Health Curriculum”
Consortium University Global Health International Educational Webinar, Washington, DC - “Global Health Practice and Social Justice”
Keynote Speaker, School of Global Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Publications
- Stawicki, S., …, Opara, I.N., et al (2020) The 2019–2020 Novel Coronavirus (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) Pandemic: A Joint American College of Academic International Medicine‑World Academic Council of Emergency Medicine Multidisciplinary COVID‑19 Working Group Consensus Paper. Journal of Infectious Global Disease. 12(2):47-93
- Opara, I.N. (2020) Healthy Aging Blue Zones Report. Detroit Medical News Quarterly, Wayne County Medical Society of Southeast Michigan, 22-24
- Hartwell, S., Opara, I.N., Kubiak, S., (2020). What the coronavirus crisis reveals about vulnerable populations behind bars and on the streets. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/what-the-coronavirus-crisis-reveals-about-vulnerable-populations-behind-bars-and-on-the-streets-137455
- Stanislaw P Stawicki,… Ijeoma Nnodim Opara…(2019). What's new in Academic International Medicine? Highlighting the need for establishing a national accreditation system for International Medical Programs. International Journal of Academic Medicine, 5, 151-155
- Mateusz Plaza1,… Ijeoma Nnodim Opara,…(2019). The use of distributed consensus algorithms to curtail the spread of medical misinformation. Internatioanl Journal of Academic Medicine, 5, 93-99
- Sona M Garg,… Ijeoma Nnodim Opara,…(2019). The Fourth Annual Academic International Medicine Congress (AIM 2019) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 26–28, 2019: Advancing Global Leadership to Promote Health Equity. International Journal of Academic Medicine, 5, 198-239
- Bell K… Ijeoma Nnodim Opara (2019). Atrial septal aneurysm with rare comorbid pulmonary arteriovenous malformation as aetiology for cryptogenic stroke. BMJ Case Reports CP 2019;12:e229282
- Yeddi, Ahmed MD,…Nnodim, Ijeoma MD (2019). Acetazolamide-Associated Hyperosmolar Hyperglycemic Nonketotic Syndrome. American Journal of Therapeutics. doi: 10.1097/MJT.0000000000001050
- Nnodim, Joseph; Nwagwu, Chinomso; Opara, Ijeoma (2020) Gait Disorders in Older Adults - A Structured Review and Approach to Clinical Assessment. Journal of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. DOI: 10.23937/2469-5858/1510101
- Asare, Smart, Opara, Ijeoma N., et al. (2020) Sociodemographic Prevalence of Sarcopenic Obesity Among Gender in African American Population. SN Comprehensive Clinical Medicine https://doi.org/10.1007/s42399-020-00570-z
- Mazumder, S, Opara, I.N. (2020) The mental health burden of social distancing during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. International Journal of Academic Medicine. DOI: 10.4103/IJAM.IJAM_76_20