Akilah A. Jefferson

Akilah A. Jefferson, MD, MSc is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Allergy and Immunology at the UAMS College of Medicine. She is also an asthma researcher at the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, focusing on understanding asthma disparities through population health research. Her work bridges clinical practice, public health, and bioethics to address inequities in healthcare access and outcomes.

Dr. Jefferson holds a medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine, completed Internal Medicine residency at George Washington University Hospital, and Allergy/Immunology fellowship at NIH. She has additional training in health policy (MSc from Georgetown University) and bioethics (NIH postdoc). Board certified in Internal Medicine and Allergy/Immunology, she joined UAMS/ACH faculty in 2020.

Her research interests center on asthma disparities, allergy prevention, and the intersection of social determinants of health with clinical outcomes. Key themes include: 1) optimizing asthma management in underserved populations, 2) reducing racial/ethnic disparities in asthma care, 3) ethical considerations in biomedical research, and 4) leveraging telemedicine and community-based interventions.

Recent work highlights include analyzing impacts of NPIs during the pandemic on pediatric asthma, evaluating peanut allergy prevention strategies, and developing structural competency frameworks in allergy training. She actively contributes to policy discussions on equitable healthcare delivery and ethical payment practices in human challenge studies.