Joshua Sparrow

Child, adolescent, and general psychiatrist, Joshua Sparrow, M.D., DFAACAP, is executive director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) in the Division of Development of Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry and is associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, part time. Dr. Sparrow’s care in the 1990s for children hospitalized for severe psychiatric disturbances, often associated with physical and sexual abuse, and aggravated by societal abuse and neglect, prompted his interest in the social, economic, and racism-related determinants of health and mental health, and in community self-strengthening, community-based prevention, and health promotion.

Co-founder with Tarajean Yazzie-Mintz, EdD, of the Indigenous Early Learning Collaborative at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, Dr. Sparrow is a recipient of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Jeanne Spurlock, MD Award for Culture and Diversity. He has led numerous governmental and philanthropic research, training, and technical assistance grants, and advised government agencies, nonprofits, academic centers, and philanthropies. He has given hundreds of lectures nationally and internationally, written numerous scholarly papers, as well as nine books translated into more than 20 languages, and hundreds of articles for the general public. Dr. Sparrow is also associate faculty at Ariadne Labs, T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and has served as visiting professor at the Shanghai Mental Health Center/Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and the School of Medicine of the University of Marseille, France.