Teh-wei Hu Appointed to CDC Panel on Smoking and Health

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has appointed prominent Public Health Institute tobacco control expert Teh-wei Hu to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee on smoking and health.

The CDC’s Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health is charged with advising the HHS secretary and the director of the CDC on research, education programs, smoking control policy and how smoking affects health. The panel is intended to increase awareness on smoking and health.

“We are very proud that Dr. Hu has been chosen for this important committee,” said Mary A. Pittman, DrPH, president and CEO of the Public Health Institute (PHI). “He is internationally recognized as a leading authority on the economics of tobacco control, and this appointment speaks volumes about the high esteem in which he is held.”

Hu directs the Center for International Tobacco Control Policy, Research and Evaluation at PHI. He is a professor emeritus of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.During the 1990s and 2000s, Hu and his colleagues made major contributions to evaluations of two California tobacco tax reform initiatives, Proposition 99 and Proposition 10.

The author of about 200 publications, Hu has specialized in tobacco tax policy research and wrote the book “Tobacco Control Policy Analysis in China.” He has advised the Chinese Ministry of Health, the World Bank and the World Health Organization about health care financing and tobacco control. He is recognized for his systems view of tobacco and health, including tobacco’s impact on maternal and child health.Hu’s term on the CDC committee begins immediately and will run through June 30, 2014.