Dr. David McBride is a research specialist and public historian. He focuses on urban health, historic preservation, and Black and Minority Communities. He also researches AI impacts on minority health care disparities and improvements. His writings and research span more than 25 years. He is the author of several major books and research studies on health, disasters, epidemics, recovery, and urban communities. Dr. McBride is professor emeritus of African American studies and history at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. He received his BA from Denison University (Granville, OH) and PhD from Columbia University (NY).
Dr. McBride’s most recent book, Caring for Equality: A History of African American Health and Healthcare (Rowman & Little, 2018; enlarged edition with Covid-19 Pandemic Section, 2023 forthcoming). traces the medical disparities and health activism of black Americans and other minority groups. It also covers national and local healthcare policies that cities and states are struggling with nationwide. Finally Caring for Equality provides understanding of the huge disparities in cases and fatalities that vulnerable black Americans and other similar groups are experiencing from the Coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. McBride’s additional books include From TB to AIDS: Epidemics Among Urban Blacks Since 1900; and Integrating the City of Medicine. His recent studies focus on urban health disasters and epidemics, and community recovery especially in hard hit, post-Covid pandemic cities such as New Orleans and New York. He has also published a new edition of his two-volume Bioterrorism: The History of a Crisis in American Society (Francis & Taylor).
Dr. McBride has received fellowships and research grants from the Simon Rifkind Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other organizations. He also served on review panels for the NIH's Special Programs unit several years..
Dr. McBride’s community projects have ranged from disaster preparedness research for neighborhoods in major cities; and preservation site development in low-income communities; to designing and implementing an Upward Bound/STEM urban ecology program for disadvantaged high school students.