Antronette (Toni) Yancey, MD, MPH
Antronette (Toni) Yancey, MD, MPH
was a professor in the Department of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, and Co-Director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She also co-directed her department's leadership doctoral degree (DrPH) program. She returned to academia full-time in 2001 after five years in public health practice, first as Director of Public Health for the City of Richmond, VA, and then as Director of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Public Health Branch.
Dr. Yancey’s primary research interests were in chronic disease prevention and adolescent health promotion, with a particular emphasis on interventions engaging underserved communities. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and editorials among 175 scientific publications, including briefs, monographs, book chapters, and health promotion videos. She served on the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Preventive Medicine, the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, and the American Journal of Health Promotion. She has also generated more than $50 million in extramural funds, including four National Institutes of Health independent investigator (R01, R24) grants as principal investigator.
Dr. Yancey served on the Board of Directors of the Partnership for a Healthier America, the non-profit supporting First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to end the childhood obesity epidemic, and the Los Angeles County First 5 Commission. She was the immediate past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Public Health Institute (Oakland, CA), having left in 2010 after more than a decade, and the same year joined the Board of Directors of Action for Healthy Kids (Chicago, IL). Dr. Yancey was on the Institute of Medicine Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and National Physical Activity Plan Coordinating Committee. Early in 2011, she joined forces with Portland, OR-based outdoor footwear company KEEN to provide expertise in launching a Recess Revolution in the workplace through its Recess Is Back! marketing campaign. She and her team have developed the Instant Recess® ROI Toolkit supported by KEEN, to be released in October 2011, and offered free of charge to employers online.
She was formerly a member of the USDHHS Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, California Department of Public Health Advisory Committee, IOM Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity and Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity Committees, National Marrow Donor Program Board of Directors, and Advisory Committee to the Director of the CDC.
Dr. Yancey received a number of awards and other recognition of her accomplishments, including the CDC Weight of the Nation Pioneering Innovation Award, Association of Black Women Physicians Lifetime Achievement Award, American Public Health Association Award for Excellence, California State Assembly's 47th District Woman of the Year and Henry Ford Health System Health Education Achievement & Leadership Awards in 2011, WNBA Los Angeles Sparks Lisa Leslie Inspiring Woman Award, California Public Health Association Joint Health Promotion Award in 2005, California Black Women's Health Project Women Who Dared Award in 2001, and inclusion among the National Medical Fellowships' top 50 scholarship recipients in its 50-year history, Celebrating 50, in 2000.
Dr. Yancey was quoted, interviewed, or had her work featured frequently in the print media, including the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Investor's Business Daily, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Reuters, Sacramento Bee, La Opinion, the Medical Herald, Time, Newsweek, Ladies Home Journal, Martha Stewart Living, Family Circle, Essence, Glamour, and many local newspapers; the national and international electronic media, including NPR, ABC, BET, PBS, Discovery Health, CBS Radio, BBC Radio, and CBC Radio; and local networks. Dr. Yancey was a public health commentator for the Los Angeles NPR affiliate, KPCC.
Dr. Yancey completed her undergraduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Northwestern University where she was the starting center on the varsity basketball team, her medical degree at Duke, and her preventive medicine residency/MPH at UCLA. She was a basketball enthusiast and poet/spoken word artist published in the public health journals Preventive Medicine and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and several newspapers. Her book of poetry and art An Old Soul with a Young Spirit: Poetry in the era of desegregation recovery was published in 1997 and 2013. Her spoken word music CD was released in 2001. Her third book, Instant Recess: Building a Fit Nation -- 10 Minutes at a Time (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA), was published in November 2010.