Cheryl Healton

President & Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Cheryl Healton joined the staff of the American Legacy Foundation® as the first president and chief executive officer of this groundbreaking public health nonprofit, now in its 10th year.  Dr. Healton was selected for this important post following a nationwide search and has worked tirelessly to further the foundation’s ambitious mission: to build a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. During her tenure with the foundation, she has guided the highly acclaimed, national youth tobacco prevention counter-marketing campaign, truth®, which has been credited in part with reducing youth smoking prevalence to near record lows. Under her leadership Legacy, which is dedicated to evidence-based public health strategies that work, has undertaken numerous other public education campaigns, research, technical assistance and a broad program of grant making.  

An engaging and outspoken advocate for improving public health, Dr. Healton has a unique perspective on tobacco control, as she is a former smoker herself and has also lost her own mother and several close family members to tobacco-related disease. 

Dr. Healton’s first-hand understanding of addiction has driven her passion to find real-world solutions to smoking cessation. In 2007 with Dr. Healton’s guidance and support, the American Legacy Foundation spearheaded a national coalition of public and private organizations – the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation – to launch the first-ever national smoking cessation campaign since the Fairness Doctrine, a brief period during which public health groups received free time on the airwaves to counter televised ads to sell tobacco. The EX® campaign, which has reached half of the nation’s smokers, can be seen nationally on television and online through an innovative and interactive Web site where smokers can get the support they need to re-learn their lives without cigarettes.  

Dr. Healton's understanding of tobacco control issues is grounded in hands-on experience. As founder of the Center for Applied Public Health at Columbia University, she was determined to bridge the gap between science and its real world application on a timely basis. She led grant-funded projects for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the effects of marketing and counter-marketing on youth tobacco use; developed a series of prevention partnerships linking public health researchers with New York state tobacco-health policy makers; evaluated intervention programs for the state's largest youth tobacco prevention program; worked at Columbia to bring an interdisciplinary approach to tobacco control and prevention, developing innovative grants which link academic researchers to public health practitioners.  

Although her current focus is aimed at reducing the deadly toll of tobacco on Americans, Dr. Healton‘s long and dynamic career in the field of public health has earned her national recognition and praise.  The recipient of numerous prestigious awards, she has been honored with the Secretary of HHS award for Innovation in Public Health for her work to reduce prenatal transmission of HHS through rapid dissemination of  culturally tailored education to increase use of  medical therapy in pregnancy. Among other awards she has received, the Social Justice Award from the State of Hawaii and received the American Lung Association’s Life and Breath Award in 2003. Most recently, Dr. Healton was named a Donald A. Berreth Lecturer by the National Public Health Information Coalition and is the recipient of the Troy R. Westmeyer Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Award from New York University in 2008.   

She is also an active member of the broader public health community, serving on several boards including most recently for C-Change as treasurer, the National Board of Public Health Examiners (treasurer), the Betty Ford Institute, Lung Cancer Alliance and the National Coalition on Health Care.

Dr. Healton is a thought-provoking public speaker and has given a multitude of presentations around the world.  Considered bold,  inspirational and humorous, she is a frequent commentator on national and local broadcasts and print news coverage of tobacco control issues, appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America; CNN’s Larry King Live; NBC’s Today, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, National Public Radio and more.

She is a wife and mother of three, an author, researcher, professor, and public health administrator with more than 25 years’ experience and has served on a vast array of national, state, and local conferences, committees and task forces for public health and policy issues including HIV/AIDS, violence, and alcoholism. Active in grant support, she has been the principal investigator/program director for more than two-dozen grants and has published numerous articles on public health topics.   Dr. Healton is currently writing a book on the topic of women and smoking, with common sense strategies to increase successful quit attempts.

Dr. Healton holds a doctorate from Columbia University's School of Public Health (with distinction) and a master's degree in Public Administration at New York University for Health Policy and Planning.  She joined the American Legacy Foundation from Columbia University's Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health in New York, where she served as Chair of the Division of Socio-medical Sciences and Associate Dean for Program Development.  Dr. Healton's involvement with Columbia University spans three decades, in which she has served in a variety of administrative and faculty roles at the medical center and in public health.

Since joining the foundation, she has continued her relationship with Columbia University as a Professor of Clinical Public Health and also serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University.