UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) Director Ninez A. Ponce, PhD, MPP, has been honored with AcademyHealth’s 2026 Gail Wilensky Award for Impact in Health Policy.

Established in memory of Dr. Gail Wilensky, the award recognizes leaders whose work has positively shaped U.S. health policy through the development and application of rigorous evidence. Sponsored by NORC at the University of Chicago, the award pays tribute to the legacy of Wilensky, who dedicated her life to advancing health care reform and served as a health economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE for more than 40 years.

Throughout Ponce’s career as a researcher and scholar, she has advanced health equity in public policy by championing data disaggregation to demonstrate how population averages too often mask the needs of underrepresented populations.

“I’m deeply honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Ponce, professor and Fred W. & Pamela K. Wasserman Endowed Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “One of Gail Wilensky’s guiding principles was that ‘you can’t fix a problem if you can’t measure it,’ and that idea has perfectly aligned with my values as a researcher, teacher, and public health scholar.”

Ponce is the principal investigator of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation’s largest population-representative state health survey and a critical source of data on California’s diverse population since its founding in 2001.

In this role, Ponce has helped pioneer ways to democratize data and put it into the hands of the public in ways that have informed and shaped policy, advocacy, and research. She led the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the CHIS in Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog to capture participation from linguistically isolated communities. These efforts have served as a model for data collection among state and national agencies. For the first time since CHIS was launched, the 2026 survey is being offered in Armenian.

Sharing preliminary estimates from CHIS during the pandemic helped policymakers, health experts, and the public understand the immediate and ongoing impact of COVID-19 on Californians. Breaking out data on Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders from data on Asians, showed that NHPIs were experiencing the highest COVID-19 case and death rates of any racial and ethnic group in the state.

Ponce has received numerous awards recognizing her teaching, leadership in advancing data equity, and her commitment to community-engaged research, including the Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award from the CDC Foundation and the James F. and Sarah T. Fries Foundation; the Inclusive Voices Award from the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR); the AcademyHealth Impact Award; and the “People’s Researcher” award from Asian Health Services.

Ponce is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Center for Health Statistics. She was also a member of the data disaggregation committee for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

Her portfolio includes more than 200 scientific publications and reports alongside her board and editorial service for the California Health Care Foundation and JAMA Health Forum.

Ponce received her PhD in Health Services from UCLA, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley.

AcademyHealth is a non-partisan professional home for health services and policy research that connects evidence, policy, and practice to accelerate solutions that improve health and health care for all.

Ponce will receive her award at AcademyHealth’s 2026 Annual Research Meeting in Seattle on Sunday, May 31, during the opening plenary. AcademyHealth will honor other scholars and researchers during the annual meeting.