Randall S. Stafford, MD, PhD
RANDALL S. STAFFORD, MD, PhD, is the Director of SPRC's Program on Prevention Outcomes and Practices. His research agenda has evolved from measuring the quality of healthcare practices to working directly to improve practices and outcomes. Dr. Stafford's career seeks healthcare transformation through new information technology and the re-engineering of primary care services.
Dr. Stafford received a master’s degree in health administration from Johns Hopkins University, a PhD in Epidemiology from UC Berkeley, and his medical degree from the Joint Medical Program at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. He completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a post-doctoral fellowship in epidemiology at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. He is also trained in wilderness medicine.
Professor Stafford focuses on investigating physician practices and patient behaviors in order to create effective healthcare models that emphasize prevention, wellness, and self-care, rather than treatment of disease symptoms. His mission is to improve population health outcomes through research that facilitates the dissemination of evidence-based prevention strategies, empowers and improves communication with patients, and helps reduce health disparities. He has applied these strategies both locally at Stanford and globally through collaborators in Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and China. Professor Stafford was founding director of Stanford's WELL-China 10,000 citizen initiative, a multidisciplinary initiative between SPRC, the City of Hangzhou, and Zhejiang University in China.
In addition, Dr. Stafford trains future leaders in prevention research and population health strategies. He is committed to advancing the careers of health professionals from under-represented communities. Dr. Stafford has been principal investigator on many research investigations that test strategies to diminish the burden of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease while reducing health disparities and decreasing health care costs. Dr. Stafford’s rigorous, high-quality research has led to more than 220 peer-reviewed articles, including many in such high impact journals as JAMA and NEJM. His accomplishments have been recognized by advancement to fellowship in the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American Heart Association.
