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Inside the Academy profiles Dr. Chudley E. Werch, professor
of health science and Director for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention
and Health Promotion at the University of North Florida. After obtaining
his Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr.
Werch held a faculty appointment at the University of Arkansas and
in 1989 joined the faculty of the University of North Florida (UNF).
As a founding member of the American Academy of Health Behavior,
Dr. Werch already has played a key role in the development of The
Academy's bylaws and core values. Currently, Dr. Werch is serving
as President-Elect of The Academy.
Earlier this year, Dr. Werch was the recipient
of the University of North Florida's Outstanding Faculty Scholarship
Award for 1998, and was recently recognized for this achievement
by UNF Interim President E. K. Fretwell and UNF Provost and Vice
President A. David Kline. Dr. Werch's honor is especially noteworthy
in that it is the award's inaugural year, and his accomplishments
will set the standard against which future award nominees will be
measured.
As head of UNF's Center for Alcohol
and Drug Abuse Prevention and Health Promotion, Dr. Werch's research
has attracted in excess of $3 million in extramural funds, including
highly competitive award grants by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the U.S. Department of Education. These research projects
have been mostly applied in nature and, thus, have sought to produce
not merely the generation of new information, but the development
of theory and knowledge that can be put to work in context of desirable
and successfully executed health behavior change. A primary example
of Dr. Werch's inspired work is exemplified in research regarding
the "stages of initiation" of substance use, focused particularly
on youth, which has allowed interventions to be tailored specifically
to produce responsive health education and behavior change programs.
Dr. Werch's research has resulted
in 56 published, peer-reviewed articles in professional journals
of both national and international and international scope. Included
among these journals are the Archives of Family Medicine, American
Journal of Health Promotion, Journal of School Health, International
Journal of the Addictions, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, and
Addictive Behaviors, as well as the American Journal of
Health Behavior. Dr. Werch is a member of the editorial boards
or review panels of at least 14 professional journals, some of which
include the Journal of Drug Education, Journal of Studies on
Alcohol, Journal of Health Education, and the American Journal
of Health Behavior. Dr.
Werch is also an invited grants reviewer for the Blades Center for
Clinical Practice and Research in Alcoholism of the Johns Hopkins
Medical Institutions, and the State of New York Juvenile Justice
System. In addition, he is a participant in the American School
Health Association's evaluation research project funded by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has served on two
NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) research groups, including
NIDA's Drug Abuse AIDS Research Review Committee and NIDA's Small
Business Innovative Research Grant Program Review Committee. Similarly,
Dr. Werch has served on the U.S. Department of Education's Fund
for Improvement in Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Drug Prevention
Programs in Higher Education Analysis Grant Review Group.
In summary, through commitment to
science-based research and excellence, Dr. Werch has demonstrated
with consistency the detail and rigor that produce exceptional scholarship.
Dr. Werch is not only deserving of the honor that his institution
has bestowed upon him, but we are also honored to acknowledge these
career accomplishments in this initial profile Inside the Academy.
Am J Health
Behav 1998;22(4):316
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