Erica Frank

Erica Frank is a U.S.-born educational inventor, physician, medical and educational researcher, professor, politician, and public health advocate. Since 2006, she has been a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC); she is the Inventor/Founder of NextGenU.org, and the steward of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize commemorative medal awarded to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Canada.

Education Frank (born in 1962) received a B.A. in Honors and Independent Studies degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1982, an M.D. degree in 1988 from Mercer University (Macon, Georgia) and an M.P.H. degree in 1984, with an emphasis on Health Education and Epidemiology, from Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia). with a focus on the health sciences. In 2024, NextGenU.org launched the University Network, partnering with accredited academic institutions to offer free courses, certificates, and degrees spanning from first grade to PhD. Professor Frank has tested and published on this model globally.

Frank was the health reporter from 1985 to 1987 for the central Georgia ABC-TV affiliate, Editor of the student component of JAMA in 1987–88, the health reporter for Vogue in 1988–89, and Co-Editor in Chief of the scientific journal, Preventive Medicine from 1994 to 1999. She has also made multiple international television and radio appearances, written editorials, and been quoted in print as an expert on various prevention-related topics with Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, BBC, CBC, CNN, Later Today Show, National Press Club, The New York Times, Reuters, USA Today, The Vancouver Observer and others.

Frank also has worked as a green building designer, UBC School of Population and Public Health museum Founder/Director, social entrepreneur, and environmentalist. In sustainable design, she helped lead developing three of UBC's "Top 10 Campus Gems" (a skatepark, an outdoor classroom, and the display of the Bioenergy Research & Demonstration Facility), was co-designer and inhabitant of three cohousing communities, and had 12 years of co-designing, owning, and inhabiting the only energy independent home in Georgia. She is the Founder and was the Director of the Museum of Population and Public Health at UBC, was the Founder and President of PosterUp.org, and was the owner/SuperHost of the only non-profit AirBnb/VRBO home.

Research Frank has published over 170 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including four first-authored papers in JAMA and articles in other major peer-reviewed medical journals such as The Lancet, BMJ and Annals of Internal Medicine.

In addition to Frank's research on the efficacy of NextGenU.org to improve health, her other research has revealed how physicians’ (and medical students') personal and clinical prevention habits strongly and consistently influence their patients' habits. This work has led to her developing the Healthy Doc – Healthy Patient initiative, a series of studies and programs to improve physicians' prevention counseling by improving their personal health practices.

This research began in 1991 with Frank's conducting "The Women Physicians’ Health Study". WPHS demonstrated that physicians’ health practices strongly and consistently influence their patient care practices and that (contrary to myth) physicians have extremely healthy personal practices. Frank was also the Principal Investigator of a national study at 17 U.S. medical schools, showing that it is possible to cultivate personal health habits among medical students, and that these students are then more likely to counsel their patients about prevention. Frank has globally led the study and promotion of the relationship between physicians’ personal and clinical prevention habits, publishing >100 physician health articles, found here. This includes being Principal Investigator of multiple (>=2/country) national studies in Canada, Colombia, Israel, and the U.S., importantly establishing the strong, consistent "Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient" relationship (shown here with 1.9 million Israeli patients and their 1,488 physicians), and its predecessor, a 5-year, 17 U.S. medical school intervention study showing the positive effects of encouraging medical students’ healthy behaviors on their personal and clinical prevention habits.

Personal life Frank is the daughter of Ulrich Anton Frank, a prolific and renowned biomedical engineer, inventor, sculptor, and painter, and Ruth Esser Frank, Ed.D., a professor of education at Bucks County Community College, both refugees from Hitler's Germany. Frank was married to Dr. Randall White (from 1990 to 2015), the father of their son, Nathaniel Etheridge Frank-White ["Ridge"]. She was from 1999 until 2006 a resident of the Lake Claire cohousing community, and co-designed, built, and inhabited the only energy independent home in Georgia (1995–2006).

Awards Selected Awards

First Recipient of the American College of Preventive Medicine's Rising Star (1996) and Gold Humanism in Medicine (2015) Awards, and recipient (2012) of ACPM's Distinguished Service Award Outstanding alumnus award, Emory School of Public Health (1998) Recipient, Alpha Omega Alpha (U.S. national medical honor society), 2005 Faculty Emerging Leader in Global Health Innovation, Consortium of Universities for Global Health, 2015 Nominated in 2016 to be Director General of the World Health Organization by the Canadian Medical Association and ACPM