Adeline Meismer Yerkes has over 45 years of experience in various community health settings and roles. She serve 25 years in an administrative capacity with the Oklahoma State Department of Health as the Chief of Chronic Disease where she planned and implemented chronic disease prevention programs with the assistance of a multi-disciplinary team of health care professionals. In this capacity she was appointed to serve as the Oklahoma Liaison for Women’s Health reporting to the US DHHS Office on Women’s Health from 1995 through 2009. She retired from this position in 2008 and started a women’s health and health systems consulting partnership, AMY Consulting, LLC. She has numerous publications in various areas of health: aging and community mobilization, public health perspective of urinary incontinence, diabetes, mortality of chronic disease, and monographs on various chronic diseases. She has been recognized by several organizations for her leadership and creative programming of women’s issues: Lawton Jaycettes, Edmond Charter Chapter, and the Oklahoma Governor’s Council on Children recognized her community organization skills; and she has been recognized for her public health leadership skills by American Diabetes Association, Centers for Disease Control, Association of State and Territorial Chronic Disease Program Directors, Central Oklahoma Integrated Network System, Region VI Alliance on Women’s Health and the US Postal Service Oklahoma City Area.
Mrs. Yerkes graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in nursing sciences, a master’s degree from the University of Omaha in education and counseling and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Oklahoma. She was appointed a Commissioner for the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women in 2009 and through her appointment currently serves as the Chair of the Commission, recently served as the chair for the Women’s Summit, and currently serves on a planning team for developing and implementing an legislative interim study on human trafficking. She holds memberships in the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau and the Region VI Office on Women’s Health Alliance and several local boards and advisory committees. She serves as board member for CARELINK of Central Oklahoma, a safety net organization to assist the uninsured.