Biographies
SUSAN DENTZER 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 an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and of the Council on Foreign Relations, the independent, nonpartisan membership organization and think tank dedicated to exploring the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.
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 50 million page views in 2010.
Before joining Health Affairs in May 2008, 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 and health policy. 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 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 is a member of the Board of Directors of Research!America, the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance committed to making research to improve health a higher national priority. She is also 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. Formerly, Dentzer served on the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council and was its chair from 2008-2010.
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 serves on the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School.
Dentzer, her husband and their three children live in the Washington, DC area.
John K. Iglehart
Founding Editor
John K. Iglehart is founding editor of Health Affairs, a bimonthly policy journal that he started in 1981 under the aegis of Project HOPE, a not-for-profit international health education organization. Over this same period, Iglehart also has served as a national correspondent of The New England Journal of Medicine, for which he has written more than 100 essays called Health Policy Reports. Iglehart stepped down as Health Affairs editor-in-chief on Sept. 4, 2007.
Iglehart was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in 1977 and served on its Governing Council for six years (1985-1991). He also is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and serves on the Advisory Board of the National Institute For Health Care Management. Previously, Iglehart served on the boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates and AcademyHealth.
Before 1981, Iglehart served for two years as a vice president of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and director of its Washington, D.C. office. During the decade 1969 to 1979, Iglehart held a variety of editorial positions, including the editorship of National Journal, a privately published weekly on federal policymaking. He holds a degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has been a journalist-in-residence at Harvard University.
