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Foundation Board of Advisors
Youfa Wang; M.D., Ph.D., M.S.
Dr. Youfa Wang is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, the School of Public Health and Health Professions, in University at Buffalo (UB), State University of New York. Earlier, he was the founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity, and an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health with joint appointments in School of Medicine. Dr. Wang is an Adjunct Professor in Peking University School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University School of Medicine, and Fudan University School of Public Health in China. His main research focus is on nutritional epidemiology; child nutrition and growth; childhood obesity (assessment, global trends, causes, health consequences, prevention); non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs); health disparities; lifestyles; global health; analysis of national survey and longitudinal data; and application of systems science methods in public health. He has extensive experience studying obesity and related NCDs (eg, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension), eating patterns, and child health. He conducts research both in the U.S. and in international settings. As an internationally-known expert, he has over 140 publications including 120 peer-reviewed papers. His work is widely cited, eg, some papers >1000 times (see http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=youfa+wang&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C21&as_sdtp=on). In particular, Dr. Wang's research has advanced understanding of the global childhood obesity epidemic, assessment of childhood obesity, and influences of dietary intake on risks of chronic diseases, health disparities and related factors in the United States and worldwide. He has served on numerous national and international expert panels, review committees and leadership positions, including over 20 NIH and CDC grant review committees, a WHO Expert Committee to help develop a new international growth standard, the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). He also serves as a United Nations (UN) consultant, and as a member of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) Task-Force on Diet, Nutrition and Long-term Health for the Quadrennium, 2005-2009. Dr. Wang is an associate editor for four international scientific journals, and a manuscript reviewer for over 30 US and international scientific journals. He was a Councilor of The Obesity Society (TOS) Pediatric Obesity Section, a member of the Obesity Society's Annual Meeting Program Committee, and the Chair of the Nutrition Epidemiology Section of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN). He is the Vice President of The North America Chinese Society for Nutrition. In addition, He has been selected for several prestigious leadership programs. Dr. Wang's research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Agriculture, and other funding agencies. He is the principal investigator (PI) or a key investigator of over 10 ongoing research projects in the United States, China and other international settings. As the PI, over the past 12 years, he has secured about $23 million NIH research grants including three NIH R01 grants and a NIH U54 Center grant. At present, he is the PI of 3 ongoing NIH-funded projects. He led the effort in winning a $16 million NIH U54 grant (1U54 HD070725-01), which with additional funding from Johns Hopkins University and other key partner institutions supported his team established a Global Center of Excellence on childhood obesity and NCDs research, training, and outreach at John Hopkins. Over 50 well established investigators from 30 leading U.S. and international institutions are involved in the project. The Center supports childhood obesity and NCDs research and training in the U.S. and worldwide. Dr. Wang holds a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health; a medical degree from Beijing Medical University; and a master's degree in Epidemiology from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College.
