Debra Fraser-Howze is the Founder and Board Chair of Choose Healthy Life (CHL), a non-profit organization addressing public health disparities through the Black Church. She founded CHL in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to bridge faith and medical science by creating a trusted health workforce within the Black church to connect underserved communities to essential health services.
To guide Choose Healthy Life, she established the National Black Clergy Health Leadership Council co-chaired by civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton and eminent theologian Rev. Calvin O. Butts III of blessed memory. She also created a Medical Advisory Board that includes former CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, former HHS Secretary, Dr. Louis Sullivan, and Former Congresswoman, Dr. Donna Christensen.
Prior to founding CHL, Debra served for a decade as the Senior Vice President of Government and External Affairs at OraSure Technologies and served as the President/CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA), an organization she founded in 1987. While at NBLCA, she was an author of the federally-funded Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) which was created in 1998 in response to growing concern about the impact of HIV/AIDS on racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. The MAI provides over $500 million in annual funding, strengthening organizational capacity and expanding HIV-related services in minority communities.
Debra completed her Masters in Theological Studies from Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, PA, in May 2024.
Main Menu
The Learning Phase includes:
Connecting Clinical Trial Sponsors: Bringing sponsors and local EQBMED-selected sites together to work as partners.
Sharing Key Learnings: Sharing important lessons learned from these partnerships.
Building Robust Infrastructure: Creating a strong support system that continues to support the growth and aspirations of local sites.
