November 3, 2023

This presentation will describe use of pragmatic study designs and artificial intelligence/machine learning to develop sustainable and scalable programs to improve population health outcomes and address health equity. Studies illustrating use of these designs will be presented. The relevance of these techniques to support a learning health system approach for primary care will be shared.

Tapan Mehta, PhD, MSEE, is a health services researcher with training in biostatistics and engineering. He currently serves as a tenured Professor and Vice Chair for Research at University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Family and Community Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Department of Health Services Administration. His independent research interests are in health services and outcomes research related to disabilities and cardiometabolic conditions with a focus on knowledge generation in pragmatic settings, and strategies in translating knowledge that can influence practice and policy. He is an MPI of two NIH-funded optimization studies focused on developing sustainable diabetes management programs to support health equity. He also leads the data coordinating center for the CDC-funded National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability with an objective of health equity for people with disabilities and co-directs the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center’s Behavioral Science and Analytics. He has published over eighty peer-reviewed articles, and authored/co-authored in journals such as JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Obesity, Nature Genetics, and American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.