Plant-based Prevention Of Disease

Qadira M. Ali, MD MPH FAAP DipABLM, the founder and Medical Director of Sprouting Wellness PLLC, earned her Doctorate in Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and completed a pediatrics residency at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC with a training focus on underserved populations and health disparities.  She earned a Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a research focus on food systems, equity and health disparities, and is certified by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine as a Diplomate in Lifestyle Medicine.  She serves Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC as Co-Principal Investigator and Medical Director of the Regional Produce Prescription Research Initiative in the Family Lifestyle Program, and as an Attending Physician in the Division of General Pediatrics and Community Health.  She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

As a board certified pediatrician and Lifestyle Medicine physician in Washington DC, Dr. Ali has long practiced primary care pediatrics, and is passionate about creatively delivering Lifestyle Medicine education in every visit in a form that spurs families to create a culture of health at home, one healthy habit at a time.  She loves coaching families on how to build these foundations through physical activity, plant-based nutrition and stress management, among other strategies, guided on the preventive medicine journey from information to implementation.  She also serves as a public health and Lifestyle Medicine resource to communities, organizations, and industry.  She is now a prominent voice on behalf of fresh produce prescription programs as a means for helping address food insecurity, via her current research work at Children’s National Hospital.

Dr. Ali has been honored as a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and earned a Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition from T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell.  She is the author of the chapter "Diet and Adolescence" in the 4th edition of "Nutrition in Clinical Practice" (2022), and the chapter "Heal a Doctor Mom to Heal a Nation:  How One Physician’s Lifestyle Journey Forever Changed Her Life, Her Parenting and Her Doctoring", in "How Healers Heal:  Lifestyle Medicine Physicians Transforming Healthcare and Their Own Health"(2023), as well as a number of scholarly abstracts and e-publications.  In 2019 she received awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics, for Distinguished Service on the Section on Oral Health's Executive Committee, and for Outstanding Committee Service to the District of Columbia Chapter.  She was the founder of the Hyattsville MD chapter of Walk With A Doc, a community-based walking program to encourage physical activity and health literacy, and previously served on the Plant-based Prevention Of Disease nonprofit Board of Directors.