Making Health Care Affordable and Equitable

Growing up in Trinidad, Dr. Cheryl Pegus (M.D. ’88) started learning about health equity as a preteen. When her grandfather became seriously ill, she was put in charge of cleaning and bandaging his foot wound — probably an ulcer caused by diabetes, though the family didn’t know it at the time.

“We didn’t have the money to go to the doctors, and frankly they weren’t very welcoming, maybe because of class, maybe because of poverty, maybe race,” Dr. Pegus recalls. When she immigrated to the United States to join her mother at age 12, she already had a plan. “I told her, ‘I’m going to become a doctor.’”

Today, Dr. Pegus is a cardiologist working in health-care businesses on new products to meet consumer needs, enhance health equity and improve health outcomes — a focus encouraged, she says, by Weill Cornell Medical College mentors, including Dr. Joseph Hayes, a cardiologist who supported her interest in community health and health equity, while connecting her to opportunities through the American Heart Association. “One of the first initiatives I got involved in through the AHA was going to Black hair salons and teaching women about high blood pressure,” she says.

As executive vice president of health and wellness at Walmart, Dr. Pegus guided the rollout of ReliOn insulin, which the company says saved customers more than $15 million in insulin costs in its first year. She also oversaw Walmart’s pandemic response and delivery of millions of vaccines — 80 percent of which were administered in underserved communities.

“Ninety percent of America comes through a Walmart door annually, so if everyone can receive their immunizations, that is a significant impact on the lives of consumers and their families, while lowering health-care costs for individuals and businesses,” she says. Dr. Pegus left Walmart in November 2022 — though she remains an adviser — to join JPMorgan Chase’s Morgan Health venture as managing director. Her goal: to invest and partner with companies and startups to improve employer-sponsored health care and health equity, while addressing gaps in behavioral health, chronic conditions and affordability.

“It’s wonderful that we have, for instance, all of these wonderful new treatments for obesity, but we can’t lose sight of prevention-related factors like behavioral health and the management of risk,” Dr. Pegus says. “We will need data and collaboration on all fronts — prevention and treatment — to bring scalable solutions forward.”