Richard Jackson

Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA

Richard Joseph Jackson is a Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. He also holds appointments in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, in Urban Planning, and in Pediatrics. He has served in many leadership positions with the California Health Department, including the highest as the State Health Officer. For nine years he was Director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award. Jackson lectures and speaks on many issues, particularly those related to health and the built environment, and has co-authored the books: Urban Sprawl and Public Health, Making Healthy Places, and Designing Healthy Communities for which he hosted a four hour PBS series.

Jackson has spoken on issues of health and environment in virtually every major city and major medical center in the US, as well as at St James Palace in London and at the Vatican. For the last 15 years, he notes in every talk the health threats of climate change and asserts it to be a form of generational child abuse. In some settings this message is most unwelcome.

Jackson is recipient of the John Heinz Award for national leadership in the Environment; the Sedgwick Medal, the highest award of the American Public Health Association; and in 2015 the Henry Hope Reed Award for his contributions to Architecture. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.