Biography: 

Dan Reimer, MPH

Deputy Director

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Dan Reimer was the Director of Public Health for the City of Fort Worth from December of 2000 until his retirement in December 2009. He directed a unique neighborhood outreach program that positioned teams of community health nurses and grass-roots community workers in stations around the city to support the work of neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations and school groups. He was the Principal Investigator of a $9M cooperative agreement with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to provide wrap-around services to children with severe emotional disturbance to prevent them from being institutionalized. Reimer took a personal interest in the SAMHSA-required Cultural Competency program and became a trained facilitator. He held a joint appointment as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center where he taught a graduate course in Public Health Practice.

Reimer was co-chair and external coach of a community coalition to battle the obesity epidemic in Fort Worth. The coalition involved the United Way, the local public health departments, the School of Public Health, the Fort Worth Independent School District, the YMCA, the Tarrant County Area Community of Churches, the Health Industry Council and the Chamber of Commerce. The United Way trademarked the coalition name, FitFuture, and set up a Website, www.FitFuture.org to track developments in a five-pronged strategic plan: childhood obesity, worksite wellness, local government policy, health professional training, as well as neighborhood and faith-based initiatives. The national YMCA, designated the program a “Pioneering Healthier Community” through its Activate America initiative.

Prior to his work in Texas, for ten years he was Director of Public Health for Orange County, North Carolina, and an adjunct faculty member of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. There he was involved in a community-based public health initiative funded by the W.K. Kellogg foundation.

From 1981 to 1987 he was Consultant to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of a Southern African Republic known as Bophuthatswana (Bo-pu-tat-swa-na). He headed a team that used the WHO Child Survival strategies to reduce infant mortality from 90:1000 to 40:1000 in a five year period.

From 1974 to 1981 he worked at the Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, NC, first as Assistant Director; then as Executive Director. He obtained his Masters Degree in Public Health at the University of North Carolina in 1974. Prior to that time he was a social worker in hospital and community settings in Mississippi and Maine.