Joseph Anthony Califano, Jr. (born May 15, 1931) is Founder and Chairman of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, an independent non-profit research center affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. He has held many posts in the United States Government including United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1977 until 1979. He is now one of only two living former secretaries of Health, Education, and Welfare (the other is his predecessor, Forest David Mathews).

Founded in 1992, CASA is now a think/action tank with a staff of more than 60 professionals, including eight Ph.D.s, 21 Masters, and five lawyers. It conducts public policy research and evaluates prevention and treatment programs involving all substances (alcohol, illegal, prescription and performance-enhancing drugs, nicotine) and has mounted demonstration programs at more than 119 sites in 48 cities and counties in 21 states, and one Native American reservation.

He has been Adjunct Professor of Public Health (Health Policy and Management) at Columbia University's Medical School (Department of Psychiatry) and School of Public Health and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

His twelfth book, How To Raise A Drug Free Kid—The Straight Dope for Parents, was published by Simon & Schuster's Touchstone/Fireside Division in August 2009.

His eleventh book, High Society—How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What To Do About It, was published in 2007 by PublicAffairs Press.

His memoir, Inside—A Public and Private Life, was published in 2004 by PublicAffairs Press. His book, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, was republished in 2000 by Texas A & M University Press with a new afterward drawing on tapes released by the LBJ Library.

NOTE: Bio updated on June 14, 2011.