Erin Fraher

Erin P. Fraher, PhD, MPP, is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Fraher earned her PhD in Health Policy and Management from UNC Chapel Hill in 2009, her MPP from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993, and her BA in Economics and Spanish from Wellesley College in 1988. Her career at UNC began in 1999 as a Research Associate at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, where she advanced to Director of the Program on Health Workforce Research and Policy in 2012, Deputy Director for Policy until 2024, and Senior Research Fellow. She previously directed the North Carolina Health Professions Data System and held positions including Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery.

Fraher's research focuses on health workforce policy, graduate medical education, interprofessional teams, methodologies to project workforce needs, and life course analyses of health professionals' careers, particularly addressing shortages in rural and underserved areas. Her findings inform policies for state governors, legislatures, health systems, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Congress. She chaired the Council on Graduate Medical Education from 2019 to 2022, serves on the 2024-2025 Congressional Budget Office Panel of Health Advisors, and has advised the National Academy of Medicine as planning committee member, workshop co-chair, speaker, and report reviewer. Notable awards include the North Carolina Institute of Medicine Award for Excellence in Health Policy Leadership (2019), University Research Council Award (2016), and Junior Faculty Development Award (2015). Key publications encompass 'Ensuring and Sustaining a Pandemic Workforce' (New England Journal of Medicine, 2020), 'Toward a Stronger Post-Pandemic Nursing Workforce' (NEJM, 2023), 'Reconfiguring health workforce policy so that education, training, and actual delivery of care are closely connected' (Health Affairs, 2013), 'Forecasting the Future Supply of Pediatric Subspecialists in the United States: 2020-2040' (Pediatrics, 2024), and 'Lessons Learned From State-Based Efforts to Leverage Medicaid Funds for Graduate Medical Education' (Academic Medicine, 2023).

Professional Email: fraher@email.unc.edu