Allan S. Noonan

ALLAN S. NOONAN, M.D., M.P.H., has recently been appointed as the director of the Public Health Program at Morgan State University. Until January 2005, he served as a senior advisor in the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service coordinating the production of all Surgeon Generals' Reports and Calls to Action. Dr. Noonan has been a proactive public health professional for more than thirty years. He has worked as a developer and implementor of public health programs at the local state and national levels in this country. Early in his exciting career, he also participated in the eradication of smallpox in West Africa. He has worked in epidemiology, maternal and child health, public health administration, and the training of health professionals — always mindful of strategies to improve the health status of the underserved. He was the Secretary of Health for the state of Pennsylvania; the regional health administrator and Assistant Surgeon General responsible for public health service programs in six Midwestern states; and the director of the Department of Health in the District of Columbia. Throughout his career, Dr. Noonan has played key roles in efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes.