Dr. Steven P. Wallace’s legacy is seen through his research and fieldwork in aging in diverse communities and his health advocacy for communities of color and immigrant populations.
Wallace’s devotion to education, diversity and inclusion, and his commitment to promoting equity in biomedicine and health are what define his enduring legacy following his death in March 2021.
In honor of his passion, Wallace was posthumously recognized in October 2021 by the American Public Health Association (APHA) when the national organization renamed its Lifetime Achievement Award after him. Wallace, who joined the APHA’s Aging and Public Health Section more than 30 years ago, was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award in 2018.
Wallace was a key contributor to the original application to establish the Diversity Program Consortium’s Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC) at UCLA. When the grant was awarded in 2014, he served as the Co-Director for the Evaluation Core and subsequently assumed the role as a multi-Principal Investigator.
He also led two NIH grants examining the impact of immigrant policies and health care access for California adults and children. As an expert prioritizing human experience, Wallace challenged the structural and racialized selection of immigrants, as well as overarching narratives about who deserves public health services.
As a professor for the Fielding School of Public Health for 31 years, he was a nationally recognized expert for his investigations of aging and the consequences of health policy on immigrant populations and people from the Latinx, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Pacific Islander and African American communities.
As an associate director for the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, he influenced California health policy through his research on the true cost of living for older residents (Elder Index).
Read about Wallace’s legacy here.
For more information about Wallace’s research and fieldwork in aging in diverse communities and health advocacy for communities of color and immigrant populations, click here.