Jeffrey Henderson, MD, MPH

Jeffrey Henderson, MD, MPH, is Lakota and an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Dr. Henderson acquired both his Bachelor’s and Medical degrees from the University of California, San Diego. After completing a residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at the University of Washington, Dr. Henderson moved to Eagle Butte, South Dakota in 1992, where he served as Clinical Director of the PHS Indian Hospital there. He returned to Seattle in 1994 to pursue his Master’s training in Public Health, after which he moved to the Black Hills of western South Dakota and returned to work in primary care once again for the Indian Health Service.

In 1998, Dr. Henderson began his transition to public health and epidemiology, joining the well-known Strong Heart Study as a co-investigator. Also in 1998, Dr. Henderson founded the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health, a community-based, non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the wellness of American Indians through research, service, education, and philanthropy. The Center has met with considerable success, garnering over $28 million through > 50 peer-reviewed health research grants and contracts, largely from NIH and CDC; providing well-paying jobs and benefits for more than 40 reservation-based tribal members; and injecting over $5 million directly into impoverished reservation communities.

In 2020, Dr. Henderson established the American Indian Clinical Trials Research Network, consisting of one trial site in Eagle Butte, SD and the second trial site in Rapid City, SD. Serving as PI for both sites, the Eagle Butte site is participating in the Novavax Phase 3 COVID-19 Vaccine prevention trial, while the Rapid City site is now activated to participate in the ACTIV-2 COVID-19 outpatient treatment clinical trial, a Sanofi Phase 3 placebo-controlled COVID-19 vaccine trial, and Sanofi’s new COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Phase 3 trial.