In Memoriam: Jane Zapka
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Community health education alumna and former lecturer Jane Zapka, '69MS, passed away peacefully on May 4, 2026.
After completing her Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) in Health Administration from Harvard, Zapka later returned to UMass Amherst to serve as a public health lecturer, field training supervisor, and public health educator at University Health Services.
She left the university for a position at the UMass Medical School in Worcester, where she worked for many years before joining the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston faculty in 2003, where she retired as a professor emerita.
In 2015, the SPHHS named Zapka the recipient of its Award for Significant Contributions to the field of public health and the health sciences. Her expertise was in primary care and preventive services, with a focus on program evaluation, quality improvement, managed care, and other health services research areas. She participated in community-based projects involving provider, patient, and public education to improve the quality of and participation in breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening. She was involved in studies concerning quality of care at the end-of-life, policy analysis of state tobacco legislation and lifestyle interventions in the workplace to reduce obesity. She had an outstanding record of success in obtaining extramural funding.
During her career, Zapka earned many other awards, including the APHA Health Education Section Early Career Award and the Peggy Schachte Research Mentor Award. She also authored more than 200 medical publications.
