Arizona Department of Health Services
Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease
150 North 18th Avenue
Phoenix,
AZ
USA
85007
Email:
colleen.wheeler@azdhs.gov
Biographical Sketch:
Ms. Wheeler currently serves as an epidemiologist/evaluator for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control in ADHS. Colleen received a Presidential Management Fellow with the US Department of Health and Human Services where she served as a public health analyst within the Evaluation Section of the State and Local Initiatives Team of the Office of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. In this role, she was responsible for qualitative and quantitative hospital preparedness program evaluation and the production of analytic reports for dissemination to federal, state, local, and non-government stakeholders. As Project Officer overseeing the Evaluation of the Hospital Preparedness Program with the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, she oversaw the management of a two-year, multi-million dollar contract to evaluate the progress made in hospital and community public health and healthcare preparedness from 2002 to 2006.
On the state and local level, Ms. Wheeler has also served as Epidemiologist with the Bureau of Epidemiology and Disease Control Services at ADHS, analyzing public school influenza surveillance data and investigating hospital-based cases of Clostridium difficile. She has worked as a Research Assistant with Johns Hopkins University’s Center for American Indian Health, collecting and analyzing data resulting from Hopkins’ Cradling our Future Project on the Navajo and Apache Indian Reservations in the southwestern United States and spent time as a graduate Intern with St. Luke’s Health Initiatives working with senior leadership on the Arizona Health Futures Survey of physician attitudes toward health system reform.
In addition to several publications and conference presentations of her research and evaluative work, she has technical training in Statistical Analysis Software and is a certified Project Management Professional and Project Officer/Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative. In addition to her being awarded the Presidential Management Fellowship in 2007, she was also awarded the Public Health Traineeship Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2006.