Julia Lear, PhD, MAJulia Graham Lear is Interim Chair and Research Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health and Director of the Department's Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. 
Across the country, schoolchildren have reaped the benefit of Professor Lear's commitment to developing and expanding school-based health centers. "School-based health programs represent an underutilized opportunity to tackle unmet health needs among children and support the healthy development of all," argues Dr. Lear, who has spent two decades helping to implement a new model for health programs in schools. In those years, the number of integrated health centers in schools providing direct medical care to students have jumped from fewer than 50 in the mid-1980s to more than 1400 in 2002. As director of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, housed in the Department of Prevention and Community Health, Dr. Lear oversees a nonpartisan policy and program resource center that works with institutional leaders, state officials and clinical providers to maximize outcomes for children through more school-based health programming. 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). Prior to holding that position, she served as co-director of the RWJF's School-Based Adolescent Health Care Program at Children's National Medical Center. EducationBachelor of Arts, Brown University, 1962 TeachingTopics in School Health and Safety, Department of Prevention and Community Health ResearchDr. 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 includes web-based surveys focused on childhood obesity, cultural competence, and oral health. Recent grants come from the Children's Vision Initiative, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Community ServiceProfessor Lear serves on advisory boards for a number of organizations dedicated to improving child health, including two RWJF advisory committees -- Pipeline, Profession and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education and Improving Asthma Care for Children. She has also served on the executive board of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, an organization she helped to co-found and which in 2002 applauded her contributions with its Achievement Award. Other activities include serving on committees for the Society for Adolescent Medicine and for the Department of Health and Human Services's National Coordinating Committee for School Health. DepartmentsInstitutes & CentersCommunity ActivitiesPublications |
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