A Short Biography

I am Dr. Bill Reger-Nash, professor in the Department of Community Medicine, WVU School of Medicine. My personal passions are holistic wellness and using state-of-the-art mass media-based social ecological interventions to promote health in entire communities. My research has been published in several different journals (See Full Text Publications). 

The developmental Wheeling Walks, a media-based physical activity campaign in Wheeling, WV, was immensely successful. The community continues to see positive change in the well-being of its citizens. The Healthy West Virginia 2010 Flagship Objective for Physical Activity (Objective 22.1) is: Reduce to 37% the proportion of people aged 18 and older who engage in no leisure time physical activity. (Baseline: 43/7% in 1998). Wheeling Walks  increased moderate intensity walking by 14% as a result of a an intensive eight-week mass media-based intervention. (Preventive Medicine, 2002; Family & Community Health, 2005)

My doctoral degree is in Exercise Physiology, and I earned my degree from WVU in 1984. I have two master's degrees from the University of Hawaii (everyone has to be somewhere), one in educational psychology (1973) and one in political science (1974). I was an undergraduate French major (Marist College, 1965).

My public health experience includes serving as the research coordinator and interim director of the Cardiac and Wellness Center of the Wheeling Hospital, the Executive Director of the Bayer Community Wellness Program in Wellsburg, WV, the Director of Wellness for Ohio Valley Medical Center, the founder and Director of the WVU Wellness Program, and now professor of Community Medicine at West Virginia University.

I also worked as a guidance counselor and teacher (French, Spanish, physical science, theology), athletic coach (football, basketball, track, and soccer) in elementary and secondary education in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and West Virginia for fifteen years. Most importantly, I taught sailing at a yacht club in Hawaii for ten years while living on my 36’ sailboat.