Advancing Health Equity in Pediatric Serious Illness: Insights for Clinical Care and Advocacy

Wednesday, May 14, 2025, 8:00 AM - Sunday, May 14, 2028, 5:00 PM, Online

Khaliah Johnson received her medical degree at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA in 2007. She then went on to train in General Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Her desire to serve children and families facing complex, life-threatening illness led her to pursue fellowship training in Pediatric Palliative Care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Upon completing fellowship in 2012, Dr. Johnson joined the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to help expand pediatric palliative care services available to children in Georgia. She now serves as Division Chief for Pediatric Palliative care at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University’s Department of Pediatrics and spends part of her clinical time at Grady Medical Center, providing palliative care at the largest pediatric HIV clinic in the United States. Dr. Johnson’s particular career interests are in community-based pediatric care, health equity, healthcare advocacy, and developing strategies to improve access to high-quality palliative care services to marginalized populations. Dr. Johnson was prestigiously named a Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Scholar in 2021, where her work focuses on addressing racism in pediatric serious illness. Her commitment to serving the underserved extends beyond her roles at Emory and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, as she consistently remains engaged in outreach to youth and the unhoused through volunteer efforts and church ministries and is the founder of the non-profit initiative in rural Kenya, We are Wendo (https://www.wearewendo.com). She is the mother of a spirited nine-year-old boy, Aubrey. Khaliah and her family reside in the Historic West End of Atlanta.

Upon completion of this live activity, participants will be able to:

1. Identify ways in which social drivers of health including racism may explicitly contribute to inequities within pediatric serious illness care.

2. Reflect on the applications of community-based participatory research principles in exploring racism in pediatric serious illness and palliative care.

3. Understand how palliative care principles and anti-racist approaches can be used to address the suffering of historically marginalized patients and promote social justice in healthcare.

Mitigation of Relevant Financial Relationships

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity, including faculty, planners, reviewers or others are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (commercial interests). All relevant conflicts of interest have been mitigated prior to the commencement of the activity.