“With his passionate commitment to interdisciplinary work in medicine and public health, Dr. Dong will look to build on the strong infrastructure of excellence, collaboration and innovation at IFH to advance state-of-the-art science in population health, health services and community health equity,” said Brian Strom, chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. “His vision will further the mission of our acclaimed and exceptional institute for health care policy scholarship and research.”
Dong has published extensively on the topics of violence prevention, culture and health disparities, with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is the editor of Elder Abuse: Research, Practice and Policy, a textbook comprising the largest collection of research, practice and policy in the field. In addition, he serves on many editorial boards and is guest editor-in-chief for the Journal of Aging Health and Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. Currently, Dong is the principle investigator of eight federally-funded grants and also has mentored many trainees and faculties to success.
Dong has served as senior advisor to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a Commissioner for Commission on Law and Aging of the American Bar Association. His policy and advocacy work with the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shaped the national agenda on the surveillance and preventive strategies combating the issues of violence and mental health. Dong was appointed as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Global Violence Prevention Forum and then chaired the workshop on elder abuse prevention.
A native of a rural village near Nanjing, China, Dong earned a bachelor of arts degree in biology and economics from the University of Chicago, an M.D. from Rush University College of Medicine and a masters of public health in epidemiology at University of Illinois at Chicago. He completed his internal medicine residency and geriatric fellowship at Yale University Medical Center.