Dr. Melissa E. Clarke is an innovative leader in population health, clinical quality and health equity for Fortune 500 companies and healthcare organizations. Board certified in medical quality, Dr. Clarke is the VP, Chief Health Equity Officer for Elevance Health where she leads strategy for health equity, social impact, and social data analytics.

Dr Clarke previously served as Chief Population Health Officer at 3M Health Information Systems, where she consulted to Medicaid state agencies and health plans on transforming to value-based payment, enhancing clinical quality and improving health outcomes all through a health equity lens. Previously, as VP for Population Health at an Integrated Clinical Network in Washington DC, she pioneered innovative care strategies to improve he.alth outcomes such as integration of behavioral and physical health; a telehealth care coordination program; and medication therapy management. Prior to that, she was Senior Medical Director at Aetna-owned Active Health Management, a population health management company, which managed over 18 million covered lives.

Dr. Clarke served as the former Board Chair of Unity Healthcare, the largest Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinic in the DC. An emergency medicine physician, Dr. Clarke’s career started at Howard University, where she was faculty in Emergency Medicine and Assistant Dean for Medical Education. There she led grants worth over $11 million in medical education, telehealth and health literacy.

Dr Clarke’s work in health equity and health literacy is extensive and she was awarded in 2023 with the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service. Her company The BHE Group, creates multi-media health content for multiple platforms and consults on improving health literacy for communities of color.  She authored the popular patient advocacy book “Excuse Me Doctor, I’ve Got What?” which has been adapted into a curriculum for low-health literacy audiences. During the COVID 19 pandemic, she worked a multi-state consortium of churches to establish a community-based response to the pandemic and trained over 120 community health workers in support of this work. She was appointed as a member of the District of Columbia Health Department Scientific Committee for the Safe and Equitable Distribution of COVID 19 Vaccines and is a co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID 19 (BCAC), which advised the White House COVID taskforce.

Dr. Clarke has served as a keynote speaker for numerous organizations and maintains a robust media presence, including as host of a weekly streaming health show to empower healthcare consumers, “Excuse me Dr!” with Dr. Mel, and appearances as a medical contributor on CNN and the Russ Parr Morning Show, a nationally syndicated show on Radio One.

Dr. Clarke graduated from Harvard University, the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and Georgetown/George Washington Universities for residency and currently resides with her family in Silver Spring, MD.