As commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Health and Senior Services, Fred Jacobs faces an overwhelming set of problems.

But even as Jacobs spells them out, the Short Hills physician is ready to suggest remedies.

In a recent interview with NJ Jewish News, Jacobs laid out an ambitious agenda for slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS and lung cancer among women, tackling diabetes among underserved populations, closing the health care gap between whites and people of color, and, underlying all of these challenges, making sure all residents have health insurance.

The United States, “by standard measures — infant mortality, life expectancy, and those sorts of things — is really in last place in Western industrialized countries,” said Jacobs, who was appointed by Gov. Richard J. Codey in 2004 and reappointed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine last year.

“We are the only country among them without universal health insurance. We have 45-50 million people without insurance. Their access to health care is compromised that way.”

In recent weeks, the Corzine administration and state legislators have discussed a goal of universal health insurance for NJ residents, with a task force eyeing plans that could come with a hefty price tag.

“We are very, very serious about this, but it requires some money,” said Jacobs. “If we can get a billion dollars from the federal government, we can do this.”

Trained as a pulmonologist with a degree from the University of Miami Medical School, Jacobs is driven to combat lung cancer. He noted that lung cancer “is now the leading cause of death in women. It is 85 or 90 percent related to smoking.”

Jacobs crusaded for last year’s state ban on indoor smoking, and, he claimed, “it is working great.” But he still calls the battle “unfinished business.”

The last non-smoke-free indoor public venue is casinos. “This is a worker protection issue and a public health issue without question,” he said. “We can’t rest until all workers in New Jersey are protected the same as everybody else.”

Jacobs’ commitment to a “core mission” of equal access extends to the rampant racial disparities in health care. Studies have found that black infants in New Jersey are more than three times as likely to die before their first birthdays than white infants, while pregnant black women are 25 percent less likely to receive adequate prenatal care than pregnant white women.

Jacobs’ department has created what it calls “the asthma collaborative” and “the diabetes collaborative” — two programs that stress preventive care among 350,000 underserved people in the state. A third program, the obesity collaborative, will begin operating in the spring.

Jacobs noted that New Jersey has the highest proportion of women with HIV/AIDS in the nation, the third-highest number of children with HIV/AIDS, and that 78 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS are minorities.

There are programs in place that are working to turn such figures around, he said. “We are having very great success” in dealing with HIV/AIDS, beginning with a “rapid testing program” that allows participants to determine their HIV status in 20 minutes.

For those who test positive, a free drug distribution program provides “not just AIDS drugs but all drugs to HIV-positive patients. It is the most generous AIDS drug program in the United States,” he said, one funded in part by federal dollars and in part by casino revenues.

“We have the highest rate of HIV infection among women, but our transmission rate to infants is infinitesimal,” Jacobs added. If a pregnant woman who is HIV-positive begins taking antiviral medications early enough and gives birth by Caesarean section, “there is an excellent chance” her baby will be born HIV-negative.

To further cut transmission rates, his department is involved with pilot programs that supply clean needles to intravenous drug users in six communities.

But for Jacobs, curing addiction must also be part of the remedy. “It is very important,” he said. “Needle exchange can’t do it all. We want to prevent the transmission of HIV and hepatitis, but we want to get to the root of it.”

Jacobs’ commitment to medicine is a family affair. His wife, Miriam, is associate director of Saint George’s Medical School on the Caribbean island of Grenada. His daughter Stefanie is a radiologist and son Richard is a radiation oncologist.

Jacobs, a long-time member of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, confesses to a commitment to healing the world that he worries may sound “very corny.”

“You want to be relevant. You want to be important,” he said. “What’s more important than taking care of people when they’re sick?”