Staff

Rod Lew

Executive Director

510.318.7814

rodlew@appealforhealth.org

Rod Lew, MPH is the Founding Executive Director of Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment, Advocacy and Leadership (APPEAL). He has over 20 years of experience in managing diverse community health programs and leading efforts toward the elimination of health disparities. His experience includes leadership development, program implementation, advocacy, coalition building, community-based research, strategic planning, grants development and multimedia materials development.

Through APPEAL, Rod has developed national models on cross cultural leadership, capacity building and policy change and has led a growing national tobacco control movement for AAs & NHPIs. Rod has given hundreds of presentations in 35 states and territories and 10 countries and trained more than 600 community advocates. Prior to APPEAL, Rod was the Health Education Director at Asian Health Services and the Associate Director for the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations.

Rod was a contributing author to the 1998 Surgeon General's Report on Tobacco Use and has written and published widely on tobacco and health disparities. He was the guest editor for a monograph on health disparities among Asian Americans. Rod provided testimony to the U.S. Congressional Committee on Commerce on the impact of national tobacco policy in 1999 and to the U.S. Surgeon General in 2004. He has also served on numerous national health advisory committees. Rod has also produced several health and educational videos.

Rod was appointed by the Governor of California to serve on the Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee (2000-2006). He has been active with the American Public Health Association (APHA) serving as Chair of APHA's Equal Health Opportunity Committee (2005-2006) and Chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus (1998-2000). Rod was the 2002 recipient of the Christopher Jenkins Cancer Control Award. In 2009, Rod also received the Lester Breslow Lifetime Achievement Award from the UCLA School of Public Health.

Rod received his Master's Degree in Public Health from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1988. In his spare time, Rod likes to go trekking and traveling internationally and spend time with family.