George A. Mensah, MD, FACC

Senior Advisor

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, U.S. National Institutes of Health

Biography

George A. Mensah is a clinician-scientist trained in internal medicine and the subspecialty of cardiovascular diseases.  His professional experience includes 17 years of public service between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and management experience as supervising physician, Chief of Cardiology, head of a clinical care department, and the Surgeon-General’s nominee to the Board of Governors of the American College of Cardiology as Governor for Public Health.

In additional to public service, Dr. Mensah spent 10 years in direct patient care, teaching, and research at Vanderbilt University and the Medical College of Georgia (MCG).  He was a professor with tenure at MCG, Director of the Medical Specialties Practice at the MCG Hospitals & Clinics, and Department Head of Cardiovascular Care at the VA Medical Center in Augusta. He holds a merit of proficiency from the American Society of Echocardiography and has been designated a “Hypertension Specialist” by the American Society of Hypertension.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Mensah has authored more than 400 manuscripts, abstracts, book chapters, and an atlas on heart disease and stroke published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC.  He currently serves as Chairman of the Cardiovascular Expert Group of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study.  This group of study collaborators is led by a consortium that includes Harvard University, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Queensland, and the WHO.  Dr. Mensah is internationally renowned for his scientific leadership and expertise in the fields of cardiovascular medicine, health disparities research, public health science, and global health.

Publications