United Hospital Fund Selects Three NYC Health + Hospitals Physicians for Health Equity Fellowship

United Hospital Fund Selects Three NYC Health + Hospitals Physicians for Health Equity Fellowship

The 18-month leadership program focuses on advancing community-driven solutions to health disparities across New York

May 13, 2026

United Hospital Fund has named three physicians from NYC Health + Hospitals for its new cohort of the Health Equity Fellowship, an 18-month leadership development program designed to support clinicians working to address health disparities and improve outcomes in underserved communities across New York. Fellows partner with community-based organizations to create innovative solutions that extend beyond traditional clinical care and address the social and structural factors that influence health outcomes. Their Action Learning Projects focus on a range of health equity priorities, including chronic disease prevention and education, adolescent wellness, legal advocacy in pediatric asthma care, expanded access to housing and food resources, and improved transitions of care for patients with complex medical and social needs, including people living with HIV/AIDS and members of LGBTQ+ communities.

• Michelle Glick, MD, MA, FAAP, a pediatrician from NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln, will partner with the New York Legal Assistance Group. Her project will bridge pediatric asthma care with legal advocacy for safe housing by training physicians, improving documentation, and formalizing referral pathways to address housing-related health disparities.
• Ofole Mgbako, MD, Section Chief of Infectious Diseases at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and Director of the hospital's HIV Equity Research Program, will partner with Alliance for Positive Change. His project will focus on improving hospital-to-community care transitions by integrating peer-led supports to reduce social isolation and strengthen outpatient engagement for patients with advanced HIV and substance-related infections.
• James Winston Grigg, MD, Associate Medical Director of the Primary Care Safety Net clinic at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, will partner with Coordinated Behavioral Care. His project will develop a "Housing as Health Care" learning collaborative to train staff, improve referrals, and expand equitable access to housing-related services.

"United Hospital Fund is proud to launch the second cohort of the Health Equity Fellowship, partnering with seven talented clinicians leading efforts to address health inequities across New York," said UHF President and CEO Oxiris Barbot, MD. "Together, we're building the leadership capacity, connections, and support needed to sustain and scale this work."

With over 15 years dedicated to advancing children's health equity through education, research, and clinical care, Dr. Glick brings a unique multidisciplinary perspective to pediatric medicine. Driven by a desire to bridge teaching and medicine to address health disparities impacting children, Dr. Glick served as an asthma educator and clinical research coordinator at Children's National Medical Center before completing medical school at Thomas Jefferson University on an urban health track, and residency at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

Now entering her fifth year at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, Dr. Glick cares for a medically and socially complex patient population and conducts visits in both English and Spanish. As a Cornell Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Lincoln, she precepts residents, leads bedside teaching and didactic lectures, and assists resident advocacy projects. She serves as Lincoln Pediatrics Asthma Champion with the Joint Commission, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and is Medical Champion for Lincoln's Reach Out & Read program.

James Grigg, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Grossman School of Medicine and Associate Medical Director of NYC Health + Hospitals (H + H)/Bellevue Primary Care Safety Net (PCSN) clinic, which serves patients with complex medical problems experiencing homelessness. In this role he assists in overseeing the PCSN clinic and is the medical lead for the Bellevue Street Health Outreach and Wellness (SHOW) vans-multidisciplinary teams delivering street medicine. His clinical work at H + H/Bellevue includes general internal medicine practice in hospital medicine and primary care in the Adult Primary Care Clinic, PCSN clinic and SHOW vans.

Dr. Ofole Mgbako is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Section Chief of Infectious Diseases at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, and Director of NYU/Bellevue's HIV Equity Research Program.

At Bellevue, Dr. Mgbako leads outpatient virology and infectious diseases services and the inpatient consult program, caring for medically and socially complex populations. His research advances health equity through biobehavioral and implementation strategies that expand access to HIV prevention and treatment innovations. His work focuses on improving HIV, substance use, and mental health outcomes among racially, gender, and sexually minoritized populations, with particular attention to the impacts of structural racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other structural drivers of health inequities. He is an affiliated investigator at the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research.

The Health Equity Fellowship is supported by Freedom Together Foundation and builds on United Hospital Fund's longstanding commitment to cultivating health care leadership and advancing equitable care delivery throughout the region.

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About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city's five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system's trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlusHealth-all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 46,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About United Hospital Fund
United Hospital Fund works to build a more effective health care system for every New Yorker. An independent, nonprofit organization, they analyze public policy to inform decision-makers, find common ground among diverse stakeholders, and develop and support innovative programs that improve the quality, accessibility, affordability, and experience of patient care. For more information about their initiatives and programs, please visit the organization's website at www.uhfnyc.org and follow us on Twitter.

About Freedom Together Foundation
Freedom Together Foundation (formerly The JPB Foundation) supports people who have been denied power to build it, so they can change unjust systems and create a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable society.