National Public Health Week 2022 Honorary Advisory Board

Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez’s research focuses on the demography of health and aging. He has written on health patterns and trends in low- and middle-income countries; on aging in high-income countries including issues about compression of morbidity; on the links between early life experiences and late life outcomes; as well as on biomarker data from Mexico to study physiological patterns of health and their link with sociodemographic factors. He co-founded the Latin American Mortality Database, the largest data repository of mortality from 19 countries in Latin America (including data from around 1850). He has collaborated with researchers and institutions in México, Brazil, Germany, and Sweden.

Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA in 2015, Dr. Beltrán-Sánchez was Research Associate at the Center for Demography of Health & Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was a David E. Bell Fellow at the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University from 2011 to 2013 and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California from 2009-2011.

Beltrán-Sánchez’s publications have appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Health Affairs; the American Journal of Public Health; the Journal of the American College of Cardiology; Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health; Demography; Salud Pública de México; the Journals of Gerontology (both, Social and Medical sciences); the Journal of Aging and Health; Theoretical Population Biology; among others.

Jody Heymann, MD, PhD, is founding director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and served as dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health from 2013-2018.

As director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center (WORLD), Heymann leads an unprecedented effort to improve the level and quality of comparative policy data available to policymakers, researchers and the public. WORLD examines health and social policies and outcomes in all 193 UN countries. WORLD’s mission is to strengthen equal opportunities worldwide by identifying the most effective public sector approaches, improving the quantity and quality of globally comparative data available, and working in partnerships to support evidence-based improvements in countries worldwide. WORLD has worked with global bodies (WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO and others), civil society, research groups, private sector leaders and other global change agents. WORLD’s launches on policies affecting children reached people in 190 countries, as did their No Ceilings partnership with the Clinton and Gates Foundations on equal opportunities for women, men, girls, and boys. Heymann is leading initiatives on the role of constitutions in all 193 UN countries in realizing equal rights and improving social and economic conditions; legislative and policy approaches to advancing equality and full inclusion in education and at work of youth with disabilities in 193 countries; and increasing transparency around what countries are doing to address the needs and rights of refugees and migrants in 150 countries. Heymann previously held a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy at McGill University where she was the founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy. While on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, she founded the Project on Global Working Families.

Heymann has authored and edited more than 400 publications, including 18 books. Selected titles include Changing Children’s Chances (Harvard University Press, 2013), Making Equal Rights Real (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Lessons in Educational Equality (Oxford University Press, 2012), Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic (Oxford University Press, 2012), Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder (Harvard Business Press, 2010), Raising the Global Floor (Stanford University Press, 2009), Trade and Health (McGill Queens University Press, 2007), Forgotten Families (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Healthier Societies (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Heymann has received numerous honors, including election to the U. S. National Academy of Medicine in 2013 and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2012. She has worked with leaders in North American, European, African, and Latin American governments as well as a wide range of intergovernmental organizations including the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the World Economic Forum, UNICEF, and UNESCO.

Heymann’s findings have been featured on CNN Headline News; MSNBC; Good Morning America; Fox News; National Public Radio’s All Things Considered; Fresh Air and Marketplace; in The New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Business Week, Inc; Portfolio; Forbes India and USA Today among other internationally and nationally syndicated programs and press.

Her research focuses on individual and contextual factors that place people at increased risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV. Current research includes sexual risk behaviors among young people attending STD clinics, transmission behaviors among men recently infected with HIV, as well as rectal hygiene practices that may increase the risk of STI/HIV transmission. She previously investigated the epidemiology of anal intercourse among women as well as an examination of the context in which non-coital activities may increase the risk of STIs in women. She has also conducted a number of clinical epidemiology studies including an examination of factors associated with adherence to antiretroviral medications, the epidemiology of antiretroviral drug resistance, as well as clinical outcomes and laboratory monitoring for HIV-positive patients. She has directed and collaborated on a number of federally (NIH), state (California HIV/AIDS Research Program), and foundation (amfAR) funded research projects.

Marjan Javanbakht joined the faculty at the UCLA School of Public Health in 2006 and is currently an Associate professor in the department of epidemiology. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, Dr. Javanbakht served as an epidemiologist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Sexually Transmitted Disease Program. Dr. Javanbakht completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and her Master’s degree at Yale University.

Dr. Alice Kuo is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and of Health Policy and Management in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She is also the Chief of the Medicine-Pediatrics Section and Director of the Medicine-Pediatrics Comprehensive Care Center. Her research interests are mainly in early childhood, and she has published in the areas of developmental screening and services, early literacy practices, cognitive and language development in young minority children, hearing screening in early childhood, services for children with autism, and mental health services for children.

In addition to her research, Dr. Kuo is heavily involved in educational programs at many levels, from high school to post-graduate fellows. As the co-director of the Training Core for the NHLBI-funded Center for Population Health and Health Disparities, she works with disadvantaged high school students in East Los Angeles, focusing on reduction of cardiovascular risk factors, community capacity-building and career mentoring. She is the Director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB)-funded Pathways for Students into Health Professions for disadvantaged undergraduate students interested in public health and health professional careers. She also teaches the Foundations of Maternal and Child Health course at the UCLA School of Public Health each year. In October 2012, Dr. Kuo joined the NICHD-funded Center for Autism Research and Treatment as its Director of Research Training and Education. At the David Geffen School of Medicine, she is Director of the Systems of Care Pathway, a longitudinal program for medical students to learn about the intersection of health care systems and clinical practice. At the post-graduate level, Dr. Kuo is the Program Director of the UCLA Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency Program.

At the national level, Dr. Kuo is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Community Pediatrics in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). She was the co-chair of the Community Pediatrics Training Initiative Program Advisory Committee at the AAP from 2005-20008. She was the co-chair of the Advocacy Training Special Interest Group in the Academic Pediatrics Association (APA) from 2004-2007, and Region Co-Chair of the APA from 2007-2010.

Clinically, Dr. Kuo sees primary care patients at the Medicine-Pediatrics Comprehensive Care Center in Santa Monica, the first ambulatory practice at UCLA with extended hours in the evenings and on weekends and holidays. She also precepts residents and students at the Simms-Mann Health Center in Santa Monica. She also directs the School Function Program at the Venice Family Clinic, a primary care-based model for addressing learning issues and mental health problems in children.

Dr. Kuo received a B.A. in biology from Harvard University, her M.D. from UCLA, and her Ph.D. in educational psychology with a focus on early childhood and special education from the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.

Dr. Yifang Zhu serves as professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. She graduated from Tsinghua University in 1997 and received her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from UCLA in 2003. Her research interest is primarily in the field of air pollution, environmental exposure assessment, and aerosol science and technology. Specifically, she is interested in quantitative exposure/risk assessments on ultrafine particles from various indoor and outdoor sources. Her current research focuses on measuring and modeling ultrafine particle emissions, transport, and transformation on and near roadways as well as in various indoor environments. Her scholarship and creativity has been recognized by several national awards, including the Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award from the Health Effects Institute in 2007, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2009, and the Haagen-Smit Prize from Atmosphere Environment in 2011.Dr. Zhu was appointed to California Air Resource Board (CARB)’s Research Screening Committee in January 2014.