Dr. Baase’s professional life has been devoted to improving the health of populations at scale, building the evidence base and practice of upstream actions and acting as a steward of system change. Catherine Baase retired from her role as Chief Health Officer and Global Director of Health Services for Dow, a position she held for 20 years of her 32 years there.
Under her leadership, their health programs were extensively recognized for their innovation and achievement around the world. She has co-authored 50 publications and received many awards for leadership in the health field.
Throughout her career, Dr. Baase has been involved across the landscape of health including: public health, healthcare, health policy, health promotion and occupational health. Dr. Baase was a founder (2007) and chaired the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance (MIHIA), a multi-stakeholder collaborative dedicated to improving the health of people in 14 counties of central Michigan for 15 years and continues as chair emerita and board member. She is a member of the National Advisory Board of the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
Dr. Baase is a member of the National Alliance to impact Social Determinants of Health, NASDOH. She serves on the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Advisory Board at UC Irvine and the Saginaw Valley State University College of Health Professions Advisory Board. In 4Q 2023, the NY Federal Reserve invited Dr. Baase to serve on one of its design teams for their initiative Intermediating Impact: Financial Innovations That Are Creating Opportunity-Rich Neighborhoods. Since 2024, Dr. Baase has been on the Advisory Board for the Whole Health Consortium at Virginia Tech. She has been a key partner in numerous national initiatives with emphasis on population health and business involvement in health. These include recent work and publications such as the Culture of Health for Business: Guiding Principles to Establish a Culture of Health for Business; Global Reporting Index; GRI and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in support of Advancing a Culture of Health for Business; Advisory Committee; 2018 – 2020. She provided technical support to the development of and then as a reviewer of the US Surgeon General Report released in January 2021; Community Health and Economic Prosperity: Engaging Businesses as Stewards and Stakeholders, A Report of the Surgeon General. Dr. Baase served for many years as a member of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and served as the initial chair of its Business Collaborative. She recently completed serving as a member of the Stewardship Council of Raising the Bar an initiative funded by RWJF to set bold new principles for the role that health care systems and institutions should play in achieving optimal health and well-being, and practical Guidance for applying them.
She is a Fellow in the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and a Fellow in the American Academy of Family Physicians.