Kevin Burns, MD, MPH, DTMH, lives in Los Angeles and currently provides addiction care in the LA County Jail. He is board-certified in family medicine, addiction medicine, and public health & general preventive medicine; he also has a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene. He recently completed two years working as the CalAIM Medical Director at LA Care Health Plan. LA Care is the country's largest publicly operated Medicaid-managed care organization, covering over 2.5 million Angelenos. The CalAIM program specifically seeks to support those who are experiencing homelessness, have behavioral health, substance use service, and/or complex medical needs, and those who are discharged from the correctional systems. His clinical experience includes emergency, primary, and addiction care to diverse underserved populations, including communities in rural Appalachia, migrants crossing the Southern Arizona border, members of the Havasupai, Hopi, Navaho, and Southern Paiute Tribes in Northern Arizona, people who inject drugs and experience homelessness in Baltimore and Los Angeles. He has worked twice with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) during the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh and with a COVID-19 emergency team in India.
His work with Access to Medicines began in 2003 when he researched Access to Medicines in Uganda for the UN Millennium Project while an intern at Partners In Health. In medical school, he was active in the national leadership of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) from 2004 to 2008. During that time, he worked on many advocacy campaigns, including actions targeting reducing the prices of antiretrovirals and increasing access to generic medications.
