How does race, class, wealth, education, geography, and employment impact public health? 

Dr. Tony Iton is a Lecturer of Health Policy & Management at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. He is also a Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment. He has asserted that in every public health area of endeavor, be it immunizations, chronic disease, HIV/AIDS, STDs, obesity, or even disaster preparedness, public health practitioners must recognize that they are confronted with the enduring consequences of structural poverty, institutional racism and other forms of systemic injustice. He further asserts that the only sustainable approach to eliminating health inequities is through the design of intensive, multi-sectoral, place-based interventions that are specifically designed to identify existing assets and build social, political and economic power among a critical mass of community residents in historically under-resourced communities. 

Dr. Iton oversaw the implementation of Building Healthy Communities (BHC), the foundation’s 10 year, billion dollar, 14 site, multi-sectoral, place-based initiative designed to improve health status of 1 million low income Californians. Prior to that, Dr. Iton served for seven years as the Alameda County Health Officer and subsequently Public Health Director where he oversaw an agency with a focus on preventing communicable disease outbreaks, reducing the burden of chronic disease and obesity, and managing the county’s preparedness for biological terrorism.  

Dr. Iton received his medical degree at Johns Hopkins Medical School and subsequently trained in internal medicine and preventive medicine at New York Hospital, Yale, and Berkeley and received board certification in both specialties. Dr. Iton also received a law degree and a Master’s of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley and is a member of the California Bar. He has worked as an HIV disability rights attorney at the Berkeley Community Law Center, a health care policy analyst with Consumer Reports, and as a physician and advocate for the homeless at the San Francisco Public Health Department. 

Dr. Iton’s work has been featured in several national and international documentaries including Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (PBS 2009), Roots of Health (PBS 2010), Designing Healthy Communities (PBS 2011), and The Weight of The Nation (HBO 2012). Awards include the prestigious Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Public Health Work (2006), awarded by the American Public Health Association to a US local health official in recognition of outstanding creative and innovative public health work.  He has served on the board of directors of Consumer Reports, Jobs For The Future, the Centers For Disease Control Directors Advisory Committee, and Grantmakers in Health.

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