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Suzanne Haynes, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor

Dr. Haynes joined the Office on Women's Health in 1995 as the senior science advisor for women's health. Trained as an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health at Chapel Hill, she has published over 70 articles and books on women's health, topics, including heart disease (cholesterol, hypertension, tobacco use, diabetes, employment, Type A behavior, spouse behavior), breast cancer (breast cancer screening interventions, recommendations, physician practice), aging (epidemiology of aging, retirement age policies), environmental issues, breastfeeding, and women's health data.

She began her career at the National Heart Lung, and Blood Institute at NIH with the well-known Framingham Heart Study, where she published the original study on women, work, and heart disease and developed the Framingham Type A scale. She moved to a UNC faculty position in 1980 to become an established investigator of the American Heart Association, continuing her work on women and heart disease. When an opportunity to become the chief of the Health Statistics Branch at CDC arose in 1984, she moved to the National Center for Health Statistics to oversee analysis of cardiovascular risk factors for the National Health and Nutrition Examination II and the Hispanic HANES Surveys.

Three years later, Dr. Haynes was promoted to Chief, Health Promotion Sciences Branch at the National Cancer Institute, where she managed several community breast cancer screening, dietary change, skin cancer prevention, and physician early detection programs, the Cancer Information Service 800-994-cancer and the congressionally mandated National DES Education Campaign. In 1990, the Governor of Maryland appointed Dr. Haynes to lead a Task Force which resulted in mandated mammography benefits for all women in the state of Maryland. She was also appointed by the Director of NIH to serve on the Women's Health Initiative design working group, the most significant study on women and heart disease/cancer in the last decade.

Dr. Haynes has held key leadership roles at the request of the Secretary or Assistant Secretary of Health during her tenure at the Office on Women's Health, including the 1996 Canada- USA Women's Health Forum, and chair of the Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding Committee in 2000, the Department's first policy on breastfeeding. She launched womenshealth.gov for OWH, as well as Quick Health Data Online, an easy-to-use data base for women's health. During the last 5 years, she served as project director for the first National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, a national, award-winning, marketing campaign sponsored by OWH and the Ad Council. Dr. Haynes continues this important work through a new HRSA-OWH partnership to promote the Business Case for Breastfeeding.

Dr. Haynes now chairs the Federal Interagency Working Group on Women's Health and Environment, dealing with issues such as personal protective equipment for women, lupus, tobacco use in young, low SES women, dietary supplements, and health education about this topic. Her vast experience and accomplishments in public health, epidemiology, health education, and health policy have led to several awards and citations.

Content last updated January 1, 2008.

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