Donna Vallone, PhD, MPH

The American Legacy Foundation

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Donna Vallone is a public health scientist with more than 10 years of experience in the areas of applied research and program evaluation. Donna joined American Legacy Foundation in 2003 to direct the research and evaluation activities across the Foundation's portfolio of tobacco use prevention and cessation efforts including countermarketing, grants, and other public education initiatives. Donna leads Legacy's research and evaluation team, oversees the evaluation of several large, grant-funded multi-site interventions, and directs all contract research and evaluation. Donna is also helping to lead the effort to establish the National Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Legacy, a new entity designed to further develop the research and evaluation capacity of the Foundation.

In her role at the Foundation, Donna works to advance the science related to countermarketing and tobacco-related health disparities. Specifically, she is examining the impact of social marketing interventions such as the TRUTH campaign (a youth tobacco use prevention media campaign) on youth and young adults with respect to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Donna is currently a member of the Tobacco-related Health Disparities Research Network (TheRNet) funded by NCI and Legacy, and is serving as a co-editor of a special journal issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health focused on Low-Socioeconomic Status Women and Tobacco Control Policy.

Donna's publications include, The Adolescent Years: an Academic-community Partnership in Harlem Comes of Age, published in the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice; and Tobacco Use among Middle and High School Students, a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Donna is working on a number of publications for peer review, including a study on the intersection of obesity and smoking, which is now under review. Donna received her doctoral degree in Sociomedical Sciences, an interdisciplinary field combining public health and sociology, from Columbia University.

Articles:

• The Importance of Location for Tobacco Cessation: Rural-Urban Disparities in Quit Success in Underserved West Virginia Counties

• Curriculum Vitae