Faculty Scholars Program

Faith Fletcher, PhD

Class of 2026
  • Assistant Professor, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Baylor College of Medicine
About
Scholar Project

Faith Fletcher is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine, a senior advisor to the Hastings Center, and a Hastings Center Fellow. Drawing from diverse disciplines and methodologies from bioethics, public health, and behavioral science, her empirical research investigates pressing health concerns and inequities facing traditionally marginalized populations. In her scholarship, she engages issues relating to reproductive health and autonomy, informed decision-making, structural stigma, and trustworthiness in both research and healthcare settings. Her K01 Award, funded through the NIH/National Human Genomic Research Institute uses a stakeholder engagement approach to develop ethical practices and guidelines for engaging Deep South residents in genomics research.

Dr. Fletcher is a contributor to the American Public Health Association’s new Code of Public Health Ethics. She is also the former co-chair of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities RACE Affinity Group, a national special interest group committed to promoting bioethics discourse and collaboration around social and structural disadvantage. In 2017, Dr. Fletcher was named one of the National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 under 40 Leaders in Health, a prestigious award that acknowledges the next generation of leaders primed to reduce health inequities. In collaboration with an antiracism task force, Dr. Fletcher recently co-edited the Hastings Center Special report entitled, “A Critical Moment in Bioethics: Reckoning with Anti-Black Racism Through Intergenerational Dialogue”.

For more information, visit https://www.bcm.edu/people-search/faith-fletcher-72936

Advancing Maternal Health Equity among Black Women in the United States: Considerations for Bioethicists

Grant Cycle: 2022 - 2023

The maternal health crisis in the US represents a well-documented yet under-addressed health injustice and therefore warrants the input and involvement of bioethicists to influence critical dialogue and advocate for equity-focused research, policy, and practices that improve maternal health outcomes. With the goal of responsibly identifying and analyzing health inequities—particularly those inequities that unjustly burden socially and medically underserved populations—this project seeks to inform a broader and bolder bioethics framework to help bioethicists systematically and deliberately respond to long-standing health inequities, including the rise in maternal deaths among Black women. 

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