Most people don't think about their health until they get sick.

Bernadette Boden-Albala sees health as a human right spanning a lifetime. Her work focuses on strengthening the foundations of health early, using prevention to reduce the burden of chronic disease before it takes root.

Founding dean of UC Irvine's Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health, Boden-Albala is an internationally recognized researcher in stroke and cardiovascular disease prevention who studies how social, environmental and behavioral conditions affect health outcomes across populations.

Her work focuses on a fundamental public health question: How can communities optimize health and prevent chronic diseases way before treatment becomes necessary?

The answer, she says, most often lies outside hospitals and clinics.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, while stroke continues to be a major cause of disability and death. Many of the factors that contribute to these conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, stem from where and how people live.

For decades, Boden-Albala's research has explored how social connections, neighborhood conditions and access to resources shape disease risk. Her work helped establish new ways of understanding stroke and cardiovascular disease through the lens of social determinants of health - the economic, social and environmental conditions that influence well-being.

"Families are our roots, but health is shaped by an entire ecosystem. Our branches extend to schools, workplaces, health systems and communities. When those parts work together, they create the conditions for people to thrive," Boden-Albala says. "Prevention is not the responsibility of any one person or discipline - it requires all of us working together to build healthier futures."

That perspective has guided both her research and her leadership.

In 2024, Boden-Albala joined a national panel of researchers, policymakers and healthcare leaders examining how the United States can move toward greater social justice in cardiovascular health. The group called for more inclusive clinical research, increased workforce diversity, and stronger integration of social determinants of health into cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment.

The recommendations denoted a growing acknowledgement that health outcomes are shaped by more than medical care alone.

Boden-Albala's research also extends directly into communities.

Through the Serve OC project, she and her colleagues have worked with Latino and Vietnamese American families across Orange County to better understand and reduce cardiovascular disease risk. The initiative recognizes that health behaviors often develop within households, where habits, resources and support systems can affect long-term outcomes. By engaging multiple generations, researchers hope to identify practical approaches that promote heart health across entire families.

The work reflects Boden-Albala's conviction that health is rarely an individual story. We live in families, neighborhoods and communities. We eat together, mourn together, celebrate together and care for one another. Yet when it comes to health, the conversation often centers on one person alone. Boden-Albala argues that a paradigm shift is needed - one that views health in the context of families and communities rather than isolating the individual patient. Optimizing health means strengthening the social connections and environments that shape daily life, realizing that people's health is inseparable from the health of the communities to which they belong.

Families influence meaningful health behaviors. Communities shape access to clean air, safe housing, nutritious foods, green spaces and the social connections that foster resilience. Policies determine whether people can obtain healthcare and live in environments that support well-being. When one part of the system changes, the effects ripple throughout the whole.

Since arriving at UC Irvine in 2019, Boden-Albala has helped transform public health education and research while leading the creation of the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health, Orange County's first school of public health. Under her leadership, the school has deepened its commitment to community partnerships, health equity, chronic disease prevention and interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together researchers, clinicians, policymakers and community leaders to address complex health challenges.

Boden-Albala believes that healthier communities do not happen by accident.

They are cultivated through research, education, policy, advocacy and partnerships that create the conditions for people to thrive. For Boden-Albala, success should not be measured solely by the absence of disease. It should be measured by longer lives, healthier years, greater well-being and the opportunity for people to reach their full potential.

When prevention works, its impact is often invisible. It's the stroke that never occurs because brain health was protected early; the family that gains access to healthy food and adopts lasting habits; the neighborhood that becomes safer, more connected and better equipped to support mental health; the child who grows up with opportunities that make a healthier future possible.