Oberlander to present Foard Lecture April 14

Photo, Dr. Jonathan Oberlander

Jonathan B. Oberlander, PhD, associate professor of health policy and administration at the UNC School of Public Health and of social medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, will present the 2008 Foard Lecture on Monday, April 14, at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education in Chapel Hill.

Oberlander is recognized nationally as an expert on health care reform, a major issue in this year’s presidential race. Every candidate is being called upon to give his or her plan for expanding coverage while also controlling costs. To shed light on this crucial concern, Oberlander authored the lead perspectives in the Oct. 25 and Nov. 22 issues of the New England Journal of Medicine – the first explored why past health reform efforts had failed; the second analyzed the health reform plans of current leading presidential candidates (see www.nejm.org).

Oberlander is asked frequently by media and others to share his insights and opinions. Already during this presidential campaign season, he has been interviewed on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” and “People’s Pharmacy,” and by “National Review of Medicine,” as well as several newspapers across North Carolina.

Oberlander earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1989. From Yale University, he earned a master’s degree in political science in 1990, a master’s of philosophy in 1993 and a PhD in political science in 1995. He joined the UNC faculty in 1997 as an assistant professor of social medicine and joined the School of Public Health’s health policy and administration faculty in 2006. He also is an adjunct political science associate professor and a research fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

The Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture was established in 1969 by Dr. Foard’s widow, Elsie D. Foard, to honor him as a public health practitioner whose career spanned more than a half-century, much of it with the U.S. Public Health Service.

This year, the lecture will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 14, in the Grumman Auditorium at the William and Ida Friday Center. A reception will precede the lecture in the center’s atrium at 5:30 p.m. Information on events sponsored by individual departments within the school will be announced later.

The events are free and open to the public.

For more information about attending the lecture, contact Jerry Salak at (919) 843-0661 or salak@email.unc.edu.

For interviews or media information, contact Ramona DuBose, director of communications for the UNC School of Public Health, at 919-966-7468 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.