Rate My Professor Wei Yang

Wei Yang serves as senior associate dean and foundation professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Reno, contributing significantly to Health Science education and research. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Nevada, Reno, and his M.D. from Nanjing Medical College in China. Before joining the university in 2007, Dr. Yang worked at the Nevada State Department of Health and Human Services as a physician and clinical epidemiologist in occupational medicine, state chief biostatistician, and director of the Center for Health Data and Research. At UNR, he has held leadership positions including lead of the Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Environmental Health, executive director of the Nevada Center for Surveys, Evaluation and Statistics, and director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program of Environmental Sciences and Health. He also teaches online Master of Public Health courses.

Dr. Yang's research specializations include population-based surveillance on health status and behaviors, environmental epidemiology, and applied statistical methodology for clinical and translational research. He is among the researchers who have made significant contributions to establishing and implementing health behavior surveillance systems in the United States, serving as principal investigator on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), and Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). His teaching covers undergraduate and graduate courses in health informatics, biostatistics, epidemiology, and environmental health. For his outstanding achievements in teaching, research, and service, Dr. Yang was named a University of Nevada, Reno Foundation Professor in 2020. Selected key publications co-authored by Dr. Yang include: Thomas et al., "Adverse childhood experiences, antenatal stressful life events, and marijuana use during pregnancy: A population-based study" (Preventive Medicine, 2023); Diedrick et al., "Adverse childhood experiences and clustering of high-risk behaviors among high school students: A cross-sectional study" (Public Health, 2023); Winter et al., "Relationship between adverse childhood experiences and gambling in Nevada" (American Journal of Health Behavior, 2021); and Ko et al., "A comparison of methylprednisolone and dexamethasone in intensive care patients with COVID-19" (Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, 2021).