As Director of Policy and Research at the New York Health Foundation (NYHealth), Mary Ford, M.S., works in close partnership with the Foundation staff to develop the evidence-base for a proactive policy agenda that advances and magnifies outcomes in the Foundation’s key programmatic areas of Healthy Food, Healthy Lives; Primary Care; and Veterans’ Health.

Ms. Ford joins NYHealth after more than a dozen years leading health care research and evaluation work that has advanced policy, programs, and health equity. Most recently, Ms. Ford was the Director of Evaluation and Analytics at the Primary Care Development Corporation, where she built a new research capacity examining primary care access that used this evidence to support advocacy and policy at State and local levels. Additionally, she partnered with staff across the organization to implement organizational impact and program-specific evaluation efforts.

Previously, Ms. Ford has held leadership roles at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, including the evaluation of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Health Care Innovation Award and a collaboration with two large health care systems and Medicaid managed care organizations on a value-based payment model for an evidence-adapted hepatitis C care coordination program. Prior to that, she managed and expanded outcomes evaluation for a diverse portfolio of health grantees, simultaneously conducting community-based research to inform grantmaking strategies, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities in Houston, Texas.

Ms. Ford holds a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Texas Health Science Center and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Policy Studies from Rice University.