Joseph A. Dake PhD, MPH, FASHA » Board of Directors

Biographical Info

Joseph A. Dake, PhD, MPH, FASHA, is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Toledo. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology at UToledo, his Master of Public Health at the Northwest Ohio Consortium for Public Health, and his PhD in Health Education at the UToledo. He worked at Wayne State University in School Health Education for 5 years before taking a position in 2006 back at his alma matter also teaching in the School Health Education area.

He has been the chairperson of the Department of Population Health since 2010. The department houses undergraduate programs in public health, health information administration, and healthcare administration. The department also has a master of public health (MPH) program with four majors, a master of science in occupational health (MSOH), and a PhD in health education. He teaches a variety of public health classes in addition to some medical school classes on health disparities.

Dr. Dake’s primary topic of interest and the basis for most of his research is health promotion of school-aged youth. This research has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed publications and national and state conference presentations. Additionally, he is involved in a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative community health assessments and program evaluations. The latter of these serve as the foundation for most of the $7 million in grant funding in which he served as a program evaluator.

For more than 20 years, he has been a member of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE), the American Public Health Association (APHA), and the American School Health Association (ASHA). He has served in various leadership positions in each of these organizations and has been awarded Distinguished Fellow status of ASHA. He is also an author for a couple of the chapters of the SOPHE textbook Health Promotion Programs: From Theory to Practice. He has served on the Expert Review Group for the National Health Education Standards and developed curriculum for the OAHPERD Model Health Education Curriculum as well as the Health and Opioid Abuse Prevention Education (HOPE) Curriculum for Ohio.

Locally, Dr. Dake is actively engaged with a number of local community organizations. His primary work in this area is with Health Partners of Western Ohio, a Community Health Center for which he serves on the board. This organization has 11 area clinical sites to serve underserved populations. Additionally, they have partnered with multiple school districts and have 12 comprehensive school-based health centers to support the health and well-being of students and their families.