Professor William A. Satariano

School of Public Health, Epidemiology

Dr. Satariano, Ph.D., MPH, is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Health and Social Behavior Program in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to his appointment at UC Berkeley, he served as Deputy Director of the Division of Epidemiology and the Metropolitan Detroit Cancer Surveillance System at the Michigan Cancer Foundation from 1980-89. His research interests include the epidemiology of aging and disability, functional assessment, cancer rehabilitation and survival, physical activity and health in older populations, and the effects of the built environment on health and functioning. In addition to serving as principal investigators for a number of epidemiological studies funded by the National Institute on Aging, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society, he is currently serving as a co-investigator on an NIA-funded study of the epidemiology of aging and physical performance among residents aged 55 and older in Sonoma, California. The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the extent to which levels of physical activity promote health and functioning in an older population. In 1999, he served as a Fulbright Scholar ("Aging, Health, and Functioning") at the National Center for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands. In addition to service on the editorial boards of The Gerontologist and the Journal of Aging and Health, he is completing a text, The Epidemiology of Aging: An Ecological Approach, to be published in 2004 by Jones and Bartlett. He has served as an advisor and consultant to a variety of organizations, including the National Institute on Aging and the National Cancer Institute. Most recently, he has served as a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Active for Life Program, a national, community-based program to enhance physical activity in older populations. Dr. Satariano is also the Principal Investigator of the UC Berkeley component of the CDC-sponsored Healthy Aging Network. In this capacity, he is co-chairing a working group with Susan Ivey to review and evaluate measures of the built environment for studies of physical activity in older populations.