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Profile

Valerie Yontz, PhD Associate Specialist, Health Services, Administration and Planning 1960 East West Road, Biomed D202 Honolulu, HI 96822 email: vyontz@hawaii.edu phone: (808) 956-5771 fax: (808) 956-5818

Academic Degrees
PhD (Sociology of Aging), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
MPH (Gerontology), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
MA (Sociology), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
MSN (Nursing), University of Utah
MS (Biology), Saint Louis University (Missouri)
BSN (Nursing), Saint Louis University (Missouri)
BA (Biology), Saint Louis University (Missouri)

Certifications/Licenses
Assisted Living National Administrator Certification (Level1)
Board Certified as Gerontological Nurse (RN-BC)
Advanced Certificate in Gerontology (University of Hawai‘i)
Notary Public in State of Hawaii
Registered Nurse (RN) in Hawai‘i

Awards/Honors

Research Interests (past and current)

Current Research Grants
Health Disparities Service Learning Collaboration grant—director-Valerie Yontz

Pacific Public Health Training Center grant—Valerie Yontz is one of the Management Team member with in conjunction with four California School of Public Health—UCLA, UC-Berkeley, San Diego State University, and Loma Linda University

Nursing grant for community and Public Health Masters in Nursing Collaboration with School of Nursing and Public Health

Courses Taught
PH 602 Introduction to Health Services
PH 630 Cultural Competency in Health Care
PH 791E & PH 791S (Practicum Coordinator)

Dr. Valerie Yontz is currently Associate Specialist and Practicum Coordinator. Through her experiences in the community, Dr. Yontz helps make linkages and placements for the MPH students' field practicum. Valerie's teaching areas include: health services, administration, planning, cultural competency, health policy and gerontology. Dr. Yontz has participated in research about community-based participatory research, aging issues, health disparities, and end-of-life decision-making.

Prior to the university, Dr. Yontz worked in an Assisted Living facility as Health Service Director for Pohai Nani Retirement Organization to oversee their assisted living services to their elder residents. Prior to that job, Valerie was hired as Hospice Hawaii's Patient Care Coordinator to oversee the clinical operations for end-of-life care of Hospice Hawaii's terminally-ill patients.

For more than six years, Dr. Yontz was the Coordinator of an Elderly Service Program for a Community Health Center in Hawaii called Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services. She developed an expansive and very successful community-based elderly service program that demonstrated elderly can exercise, eat right, improve their health, and age more successfully while staying longer in their own homes. Valerie also served as the Quality Assurance Officer and the Director of Public Housing Services for Kokua Kalihi Valley Health Center. She created many major components of KKV's Quality Improvement system.

Valerie is originally from central Illinois and has a wide range of experiences acquired throughout her professional life. Valerie is a nurse, biologist, sociologist, and gerontologist. She has worked in Missouri, Maine, Utah, and Illinois as an emergency room nurse, home health nurse, tuberculosis monitoring nurse, and nursing consultant. With her transcultrual nursing background, Valerie has worked overseas in Liberia, West Africa training village health workers and in Thailand, Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia teaching and training Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees about health education topics and healthy behavior practices.

Selected Publications
Yontz, V. & Maddock, J. (2007). Focus on Health Disparities: Gaining Momentum in Hawaii, California Journal of Health Promotion 2007, Volume 5, Issue in press.

Yontz, V., Kilonsky, N. Maddock, J. & Braun, K. (2007) Public Health at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 2000-2006. California Journal of Health Promotion 2007, Volume 5, Issue I, vii-xv.