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Howell Wechsler to Head The Alliance for a Healthier Generation
Howell Wechsler, Director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) at the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that he will step down from that post in late May to become Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.
“After more than 18 years at DASH, including the last nine as Director, I believe that the time has come for me to pursue a new challenge,” wrote Wechsler, a TC alumnus who in February delivered the College’s annual Tisch lecture. “The Alliance for a Healthier Generation is a dynamic organization that is providing critical leadership in promoting physical activity and healthy eating and preventing obesity among young people. Its Healthy Schools Program is helping schools across the Nation build the capacity to address critical health problems. I am very excited about the opportunity to help the Alliance fulfill its mission.”
On Wechsler’s watch, DASH’s accomplishments include generating a wealth of new and more reliable data on youth health risk behaviors and school health policies and practices; developing and implemented programs and practices based on cutting-edge science; raising awareness about the importance of preventing HIV, STD, and pregnancy among young people; educating policy makers about effective, science-based prevention strategies; improving the quality of sexual health education in the nation’s schools; and expanding young people’s access to key sexual health services.
More broadly, DASH has become integrated into the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at CDC. The division also is in the final stages of completing a five-year strategic plan, which will be released later this spring.
Watch Wechsler talk about school health as part of TC’s “Mini-Moments with Big Thinkers” series.
Published Friday, Mar. 29, 2013
