The objective of Stanford's proposed Health Services Research Training Program (HSRTP) is to develop independent, well-trained, diverse researchers who conduct rigorous and innovative health services research (HSR) on important challenges facing the U.S. health care system. Our program design is motivated by our view that excellent health services researchers need a strong grasp of core disciplinary skills, the ability to function in multidisciplinary settings, and the ability to engage with both traditional and emerging research contexts. Accordingly, our program emphasizes strong disciplinary training in our core areas of health economics, outcomes research, and decision science. We provide this training within the rich multidisciplinary environment of our integrated campus. Our trainees will frequently be side-by-side with trainees and faculty from areas like clinical medicine, economics, engineering, ethics, informatics, and law. Mentored research experiences are designed to further our program design goals. Trainees will pursue one or more independent research projects in their area(s) of interest, working with multiple mentors with complementary areas of expertise. The program will connect trainees with mentors focused on trainees' topics and methods of interest as well as at least one mentor focused on career development. The program includes 30 faculty mentors, drawn from 12 departments or programs. Trainees will find opportunities to engage in research projects in a wide variety of HSR areas, including AHRQ priority areas like health insurance, quality and safety, affordability, and access. As they pursue their research, our program will particularly facilitate engagement with emerging HSR topics, settings, and methods. Our program includes faculty and other connections to Stanford's strong and expanding capabilities in the areas of population health management, learning health care systems, informatics, and health law. We take advantage of extensive recent investments in cutting-edge data and computing resources to support HSR; the creation of HSR-related collaborations with institutions like Intermountain Health, Kaiser Permanente, Google, and Facebook; and the presence of leading investigators in advanced computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, textual processing, and their application to new data sources and types. The program will support 5 pre- and 4 postdoctoral trainees per year, providing 2-3 years of full time support for each trainee. Predoctoral trainees will earn a PhD in Health Policy or a related field and postdoctoral fellows with a professional degree (e.g. MD) will commonly earn an MS in Health Policy. Postdoctoral trainees with a research degree will focus on research activities complemented by targeted electives.
Our aim i s that these trainees will strengthen the next generation of diverse HSR leaders, equipped to generate, translate and disseminate the evidence needed to improve health care delivery in the United States.
The proposed training program will contribute to public health by developing researchers who conduct rigorous, innovative research on important challenges facing the U.S. health care system. This research will guide the development of policies and innovations that improve the health of Americans.
