Woolf is professor of Family Medicine and Population Health. He holds the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity. Woolf has edited three books and published more than 200 articles in a career that has focused on raising public awareness about the social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape health and produce inequities. Beyond research, he works to address these issues through outreach to policymakers and the public, including testimony before Congress, consulting, editorials in major newspapers and social media, and speaking engagements.Woolf chaired the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine panel that produced Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, which compared the health of Americans with peers in 16 other high-income countries. In recent years his team has examined the rise in midlife mortality rates in the United States, including studies conducted at the national, state, and county levels. Woolf received his MD in 1984 from Emory University and underwent residency training in family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also a clinical epidemiologist and underwent training in preventive medicine and public health at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his MPH. in 1987.  He is board certified in family medicine and in preventive medicine and public health. He began his career as a health services researcher, with a focus on evidence-based guidelines. He served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2001.

 

*1 CPH credit available*