Randi Foraker, PhD, MA, FAHA

Director, Center for Population Health Informatics (CPHI)

Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medical Sciences, School of Medicine

Associate Professor of Public Health, Brown School

Randi Foraker, PhD, MA, FAHA, is focused on applying epidemiology and informatics techniques to solve problems in the population health domain.

Background

Randi Foraker, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Population Health Informatics (CPHI) at the Institute for Informatics (I2) and an Associate Professor of General Medical Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. As director of the CPHI, she aims to improve the health of the community through data and support data access, analytics, and dissemination efforts. Her own work specializes in the design of population-based studies and the integration of electronic health record data with socioeconomic indicators, and her research portfolio has been supported by a combination of governmental and industry grants and contracts. Her most recent research has focused on the application of clinical decision support to complement risk scoring in primary care, cardiology, and oncology.

Dr. Foraker also serves as Director of the Public Health Data and Training Center for the Institute for Public Health. As director of the Data and Training Center, she aims to amplify public health knowledge through data sharing, strategic partnerships with the community, and the training of future public health leaders. During the COVID pandemic, she has served as PI of the COVID umbrella IRB leveraging electronic health record data at Washington University in St. Louis and works closely with investigators who conduct research using data from our COVID Data Commons, which is maintained by I2. Dr. Foraker chairs the Epidemiology Strike Force and convenes members of the St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Jefferson County, Franklin County, and St. Charles County Departments of Public Health on a weekly basis along with academic, health system, and business partners to assist with their data architecture, management, and analytic needs during the pandemic and beyond.

Dr. Foraker received her PhD in epidemiology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her research focused on evaluating the impact of socioeconomic status on incident cardiovascular disease, receipt of cardiovascular treatments, and the progression of heart failure. Dr. Foraker also received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in education and health promotion, respectively, from The University of Iowa.

Media Interview

Dr. Randi Foraker recently participated in a Beyond Boundaries Podcast at Washington University in St Louis. Joining her is PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant Joshua Landman. Hear them talk about their backgrounds, the work they pursue at WashU, and the effects of COVID-19 on both their life and research pursuits. They imparted some great advice for incoming first year students as well.

Research Interests

  • Approaches for the integration of socioeconomic and patient-reported outcome data with electronic health record data
  • Interventional approaches to the use of electronic health records in order to address modifiable risk factors for disease and enable patient-centered decision making
  • Study design methodology and data analysis

Lab Members

  • Aixia Guo, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Institute for Informatics
  • Josh Landman, MS, PhD Candidate, Washington University in St. Louis, Division of Computational & Data Sciences

Selected Publications