Mariah A. Taylor, MSN, RN, CPNP (born 1 October 1939, in Atlanta, Texas), is the co-founder of the North Portland Nurse Practitioner Community Health Clinic in Portland, Oregon, the first Black-owned community-based nurse practitioner clinic in the country.[1]
Taylor was born to Geneva and Isaac Allen into a family of 24 siblings.[2]
Taylor received her ADN and LPN certification from the Portland Community College Licensed Practical Nurse Program in 1972.[3] She achieved her Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon in 1977. She earned her Master's Degree in Nursing and certification as a pediatric nurse practitioner from the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver, Colorado in 1979. She received her PhD from Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon in 1992.[4]
In 1982 Taylor opened her well-baby clinic in North Portland, which since inception has served the neediest clients of all kinds in the greater Portland metropolitan area. In 1984, the clinic became a United Way agency. The most common health problems treated at the clinic have been poverty-related, with funding coming from donations and foundations. The clinic has also provided fresh produce, milk and clothes to the community.[5] [6]
Despite being on a fixed income herself, Mariah regularly donates food to the homeless communities in Portland. [1]
Taylor has won Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network Use Your Life award, 2000.[7]