Keynote Speaker

John D. Cowden, MD, MPH
​Dr. Cowden is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a general academic pediatrician at Children's Mercy Kansas City, where he served for 10 years as Medical Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity, and now serves as Health Equity Integration Project Lead. He is also founder and Director of the Culture and Language Coaching Program (CLCP), an innovative model for training bilingual health care providers seeking to reach a professional level of linguistic and cross-cultural proficiency. The CLCP includes CHiCoS, a training program for pediatric residents, and Adelante, which supports mental/behavioral health providers in community safety net settings.

Dr. Cowden’s research and quality improvement interests include provider-patient communication, models for culturally and linguistically appropriate care, and data collection for health equity surveillance. In his bilingual primary care practice at Children’s Mercy’s Pediatric Care Center, he serves Spanish-speaking families from throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area. He teaches medical students from the University of Kansas City – Missouri and the University of Kansas and pediatric residents at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

Dr. Cowden trained in medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, completed a pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, Washington, and received a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Washington. He also completed the Disparities Leadership Program at the Disparities Solutions Center, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.