SPOTLIGHTS

LAWRENCE GREEN

Meet a member of the Salud America! Executive Workgroup

Lawrence Green wanted to be a dentist, just like his uncle. He even worked in his uncle's dental lab as a high-school senior.

But dentistry wasn't for him. Neither was being a doctor.

He was discouraged by the lack of attention to the root causes of many basic health problems, and didn't want to see patients regularly, only to have them return with more of the same issues.

Green first encountered the field of public health while studying hospital administration at the University of California, Berkeley, but he quickly knew it was for him.

"I was exposed to and smitten by the charms of public health, and I still am, to this day," said Green, who counts his faculty advisors at Berkeley as his most influential mentors alongside his uncles, the dentist, and Tex Winter, who was an assistant basketball coach with the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls and is currently with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Today, Dr. Green is an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the co-leader of the Society, Diversity and Disparities Program of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Green has broad experience in health education, prevention, population health, and community interventions for health promotion and risk reduction. He served as the first director of the U.S. Office of Health Information and Health Promotion in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health under President Jimmy Carter's administration. He has been on the public health faculties at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Texas, Emory and British Columbia. He serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and 13 other journals in his field, and his textbooks have been widely adopted.

He joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1999 and held various high-ranking positions, including director of the CDC's Office of Science and Extramural Research and associate director for prevention research and academic partnerships in the Public Health Practice Program Office.

He is a consultant for Salud America!, which he believes could have a strong impact on getting answers to the fundamental questions behind Latino childhood obesity.

"Most of the research and guidelines for obesity control are limited in the evidence they can offer for interventions, programs and policies, and what little evidence of effectiveness we have does not necessarily address the particular needs of Latino children, who are disproportionately affected by the epidemic," Dr. Green said. "I hope that lud America! will become the rallying point and the source of practice-based evidence for the development of effective policies, programs and interventions for Latino children."

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