Edward H. Wagner, MD, MPH, Chair

Dr. Wagner is a general internist/epidemiologist and Director of the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Center for Health Studies (CHS), Group Health Cooperative. He is also Professor of Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Current research interests include the development and testing of population-based care models for diabetes, frail elderly, and other chronic illnesses; the evaluation of the health and cost impacts of chronic disease and cancer interventions, and interventions to prevent disability and reduce depressive symptoms in older adults. Dr. Wagner has written two books and more than 200 journal articles. He serves on the editorial boards of Health Services Research and the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, and acts as a consultant to multiple Federal agencies and private foundations. He recently completed a stint as Senior Advisor on Managed Care Initiatives in the Director's Office of the National Institutes of Health. As of June 1998, he directs Improving Chronic Illness Care (ICIC), a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The overall goal of ICIC is to assist health systems improve their care of chronic illness through quality improvement and evaluation, research, and dissemination. Dr. Wagner is also Principal Investigator of the Cancer Research Network, an NCI funded consortium of 10 HMOs conducting collaborative cancer effectiveness research.


Ronald M. Andersen, PhD

Ronald Andersen is the Fred W. and Pamela K. Wasserman Professor of Health Services, and Professor of Sociology at the UCLA School of Public Health. He teaches courses in health services organization, research methods, evaluation, and leadership. Dr. Andersen received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Purdue University. He has studied access to medical care for his entire professional career of 30 years. Dr. Andersen developed the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use that has been used extensively nationally and internationally as a framework for utilization and cost studies of general populations as well as special studies of minorities, low income, children, women, the elderly, oral health, the homeless and the HIV-positive population. He has directed three national surveys of access to care and has led numerous evaluations of local and regional populations and programs designed to promote access to medical care. Dr. Andersen's other research interests include international comparisons of health services systems, graduate medical education curriculum, physician health services organization integration, and evaluations of geriatric and primary care delivery. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and was on the founding Board of the Association for Health Services Research. He has been Chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. In 1994 he received the Association's Leo G. Reeder award for Distinguished Service to Medical Sociology; in 1996 he received the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Association for Health Services Research; and in 1999 he received the Baxter Allegiance Health Services Research Prize.


John Ayanian, M.D., M.P.P.

Dr. Ayanian is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he practices general internal medicine. His research focuses on quality of care and access to care for major medical conditions, including colorectal cancer and myocardial infarction. He has extensive experience in the use of cancer registries to assess outcomes and evaluate the quality of cancer care. In addition, he has studied the effects of race and gender on access to kidney transplants and on quality of care for other medical conditions. Dr. Ayanian is Deputy Editor of the journal Medical Care, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.


Paula Diehr, Ph.D.

Paula Diehr is professor of Biostatistics and Health Services at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is currently a member of the Health Services Research and Development Scientific Review and Evaluation Board for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Diehr serves on the editorial boards of Statistics in Medicine, Health Services Research, the Annual Review of Public Health, and the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Biostatistics. She received the award for excellence in public health statistics from the Statistics Section of the American Public Health Association in 1991. She was named Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1994, and Fellow of the Association for Health Services Research in 1996. Dr. Diehr has worked primarily in health services research. Her research focuses on the use of health services, with a special emphasis on mental health services; different insurance and provider plans; health status; efficient diagnostic algorithms for headache, cough, and ankle trauma; health services for older adults; on people without health insurance; and on survey research methods. Dr. Diehr is probably best known for her work in small-area variation analysis. Her article on this topic won the 1991 AHSR award for "Article of the Year." She is currently interested in statistical methods for the evaluation of community-based health promotion programs and in statistical issues involved in analyzing future years of healthy life for older adults.

David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD

David O. Meltzer is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and an associated faculty member of the Harris School and the Department of Economics. Meltzer's research explores problems in health economics and public policy. His recent work has focused on the theoretical foundations of medical cost-effectiveness analysis, including issues such as accounting for future costs due to the extension of life and the empirical validity of quality of life assessment, which he has examined in the context of diabetes and prostate cancer. Another major area of study examines the effects of managed care and medical specialization on the cost and quality of care, especially in teaching hospitals. Meltzer is the recipient of numerous awards, the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship in Economics, the Lee Lusted Prize of the Society for Medical Decision Making, the Health Care Research Award of the National Institute for Health Care Management, and the Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Award. He is also a faculty research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served on a panel that examined the "Future of Medicare" for the National Academy of Social Insurance and served on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Policy Committee at IOM.

Cynthia D. Mulrow, M.D., MSc.

Cynthia Mulrow is Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and is the Director of the San Antonio VA Cochrane Center. She is also the director of one of twelve Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Mulrow's editorial board memberships and positions include member of the editorial board of the British Medical Journal, the American Journal of Medicine, the ACP Journal Club, and the Clinical Advisory and Editorial Board (electronic and print Evidence-based Therapeutics Compendium). Dr. Mulrow's expertise in clinical methodology, information synthesis, and systematic reviews also has resulted in invitations to serve on many national and international committees and task forces. Current appointments include the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and the Veterans Administration's National Research and Methodology Committee.

Robin M. Weinick, Ph.D.

Dr. Weinick is Director, Intramural Research in the Center for Primary Care Research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Weinick led the AHRQ's efforts to build research agendas addressing the health care needs of low-income Americans and those residing in urban areas, and lead an inter-Agency effort to develop a data system for monitoring the status of the health care safety net. She was actively involved with the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey project through the various phases of survey process, including questionnaire design, pre-testing, interviewer training, data editing, and data release activities. Dr. Weinick has served as chairperson of several analytic groups contributing to different areas of survey content and data preparation, particularly access to care, health status/conditions, and demographics. Her research focuses on the relationship between families and health, as well as access to care and populations at risk of not having adequate access to and use of health care services, with particular emphasis on racial and ethnic disparities, children, and the impact of managed care gatekeeping. Dr. Weinick served on the Interagency Committee to evaluate the Federal Racial Ethnic Standards.