Julia Lear, Ph.D.
Julia Graham Lear is a Research Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Prevention and Community Health.
- Phone: (202)466-3396
- Fax: (202) 466-3467
- Email: jgl@gwu.edu
For the past 25 years, Dr. Lear has focused on schools as "an underutilized opportunity to tackle unmet health needs among children and support the healthy development of all." During much of that time Dr. Lear has championed a new model for health programs in schools -- school-based health centers -- that integrate physical and mental health services as well as offering health promotion, nutrition and other health programming. From the late 1980s until 2010, the number of school-based health centers has jumped from fewer than 50 to an estimated 1900 - 2000. More recently Dr. Lear has focused on the wider universe of school-connected health programs – school nursing, mental health and counseling programs, and oral health programs – as a way to extend the benefits of school-based care to larger numbers of children and adolescents. The results of that work were summarized in a Health Affairs article “Health At School: A Hidden Health Care System Emerges from The Shadows,” March/April 2007, 26, no. 2 (2007): 409-419. (http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/26/2/409 Dr. Lear is the founder and former director of the Department's Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. Currently, with support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center is working with school-community partnerships that expand mental health services for children with unmet needs, especially children of immigrants and refugees. In September 2009, Professor Lear stepped down as director and Dr. Olga Acosta Price, former Center co-director, became the Center director. As a research professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at the School of Public Health and Health Services, Dr. Lear teaches courses on children’s health needs at school. Dr. Lear first came to George Washington University in 1993, as director of Making the Grade, a national grant program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). That initiative funded nine states focused on developing policies and programs to support school-based health centers. Prior to holding that position, she served as co-director of the RWJF's School-Based Adolescent Health Care Program located at the Children's National Medical Center.
Education
• Bachelor of Arts, Brown University, 1962 • Master of Arts (Law and Diplomacy), Tufts University, 1963 • Doctor of Philosophy (Law and Diplomacy), Tufts University, 1971
Teaching
• Topics in School Health and Safety, Department of Prevention and Community Health • Introduction to School Health and Safety, Department of Prevention and Community Health
Research
Dr. Lear's research interests center on the organization and delivery of health and prevention services for children, particularly in the schools. She has assessed best-practice in implementing school-based health centers and explored how traditional school health programs (including nursing services, counseling arrangements and mental health care) might be integrated within schools and with community services to build more effective, accountable care systems. Current research and program development work has focused on addressing the emotional and behavioral health needs of immigrant and refugee children. Recent grants to the Center come from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Colorado Health Foundation, the California Healthcare.
Community Service
Professor Lear has served on advisory boards for a number of organizations dedicated to improving child health. She currently chairs the School Health Advisory Board for the DC Department of Health and facilitates the Advisory Committee on School Mental Health in the District of Columbia. Previously she has served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Student Support Center that provides mental health services to 12 public charter schools in the District of Columbia; served as a member of the executive committee of the National Coordinating Committee on School Health and Safety, was a member of the advisory board for the National Education Association’s Health Information Network, and served on the executive board of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, an organization she co-founded and which in 2002 recognized her contributions with its Achievement Award. Other activities included serving on committees for the Society for Adolescent Medicine and the Institute of Medicine.
Expertise
- Access to Health Care
- Children's Health
- Community Health
- Health Cafe Safety Net and Safety Net Providers
- Health Care Financing and Workforce
- Medicaid and SCHIP
- Mental Health
- Organizational Change
- Prevention
- School Health
- State Health Issues