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David Katz MD Biography
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David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM earned his BA degree from Dartmouth College (1984); his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993). He completed sequential residency training in Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine/Public Health.
He is the founding director (1998) of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Past-President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and Founder/President of the True Health Initiative, a non-profit organization established to promote messages about healthy, sustainable diet and lifestyle in the service of adding years to lives and life to years around the globe.
Katz directed the development of the Overall Nutritional Quality Index® used in the NuVal® nutritional guidance system, the world's most robustly validated nutrient profiling system. He is the Founder (2016) and CEO of his own start-up company, developing a disruptively innovative approach to dietary intake assessment, and diet coaching – known as Diet Quality Photo Navigation (DQPN; DQPN™, LLC). He serves as Senior Science Advisor to Better+ Therapeutics, a digital therapeutic platform devoted to the use of diet and lifestyle for the treatment and reversal of chronic disease; and Senior Wellness Advisor to Indigo Ag.
The recipient of many awards for his contributions to public health, he has received three honorary doctorate degrees. Dr. Katz has held faculty positions at the Yale University Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, and as adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He served as Director of Medical Studies in Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine for nearly a decade.
He holds 5 U.S. patents with other patents pending. He has published roughly 200 scientific articles and textbook chapters, and 17 books to date, including multiple editions of leading textbooks in both Preventive Medicine and nutrition. His most recent book is The Truth about Food, with all proceeds going to support the True Health Initiative. His next book, with co-author Mark Bittman, is due out in the spring of 2020 (How to Eat; Houghton Mifflin).
Dr. Katz invented the meta-research method known as "evidence mapping;" the behavior modification construct called "impediment profiling;" a multi-site clinical trial approach to community-based participatory research called the multi-site translational community trial (MTCT); and most recently, "evidence threshold pathway mapping," a method for applying diverse evidence sources in particular to questions about lifestyle practices and lifelong health effects.
Prominent as a journalist and commentator addressing matters of health and medicine, Dr. Katz has been quoted in most major magazines and newspapers and has appeared widely on radio and television – and served as a regular on-air medical contributor for Good Morning America/ABC News for over two years. He has delivered addresses at major universities and conferences throughout the United States and countries around the world on six continents.
Widely recognized for his abilities as an orator, Dr. Katz has been hailed by peers as "the poet laureate of health promotion." In 2018, Katz was named conference chair for the annual Art & Science of Health Promotion conference. He has served as one of the expert judges for the annual rankings of diets by US News & World Report for much of the past decade. Katz was a 2019 finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award in the category of health journalism for two pieces in New York Magazine co-authored with Mark Bittman.
Recognized globally for expertise in nutrition, health promotion, and the prevention of chronic disease, he reaches a social media following of nearly one million.