Caroline Peck, MD, MPH, FACOG, Chief of the Chronic Disease and Injury Control Division

Dr. Peck has served as California’s Chronic Disease Director and the Chief of the Chronic Disease and Injury Control Division in the California Department of Public Health since 2015. Dr. Peck is a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist and preventive medicine/public health physician who has devoted her career in medicine and public health to improving the wellbeing of Californians, especially that of the uninsured and underinsured.

Immediately after completing her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Peck served as staff and then Chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico. This experience sparked her interest in population health, and she returned to complete a General Preventive Medicine/Public Health residency at the California Department of Public Health. Dr. Peck then worked in local and state government overseeing maternal-child health and breast and cervical cancer early detection programs. Seeing the need to maintain a pipeline of public health physicians and scientists, she became Section Chief and Director of the California Department of Public Health General Preventive Medicine/Public Health Residency and California Epidemiologic Investigative Service Fellowship. In 2009 she became the Chief of the Chronic Disease Control Branch, overseeing programs that address the leading causes of preventable death and disability, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis. Dr. Peck has been the Division Chief since 2015, overseeing programs that address chronic disease, cancer and injury prevention via evidenced-based public health approaches, as well as programs that conduct surveillance of chronic disease including cancer. In addition to the above, she oversees programs that advance tobacco control, healthy nutrition, physical activity, active transportation, obesity prevention, violence prevention and that address alcohol, opioid and marijuana misuse.

Dr. Peck has a medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine, and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Peck is a Volunteer Clinical Faculty at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Peck is a member of the Board of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors.

Dr. Peck’s primary interests are in a broad approach to chronic disease prevention, health economics, and women’s health.
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