Joan Werblun is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the California Health Collaborative, a nonprofit organization administering programs throughout California to promote quality life and health care in the underserved populations.
She spent over thirty years as the Diabetes Nurse Expert for the UC Davis Hospital and Medical School. She was recruited by the State of California Health Department to head a project to develop a statewide program for standards of care and management of Diabetes and she chaired this project for two years. She was the Chair of the program which became the Diabetes Coalition of California and was given a proclamation, by then-Governor Pete Wilson, for her work in Diabetes. She served on local, state and national boards and committees of the American Diabetes Association for 27 years. She was awarded a grant from the American Pharmacists Association Foundation and spent a year with migrant farm laborers in the Lost Hills, California area as part of the Project Impact, a national study of patient empowerment and care in the field of Diabetes. She spent time in Nigeria and Ghana working in villages and hospitals teaching diabetes management to hospital staff and patients. She served as the founding chair of Citizens for the Right to Know, a nonprofit patient activist organization and worked with legislation to create the Department of Managed Care. She is retired from UC Davis but continues her work in Diabetes throughout the state.