Who We Are and What We Do
The Department of Population Medicine (DPM) resides within the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and is an appointing department of Harvard Medical School. DPM does the research that helps provide information to people at all levels of our health care system, from government health officials to private citizens faced with day-to-day choices about how to maintain their own health. We inform policy makers who make decisions about insurance coverage, and individual clinicians and patients who need reliable evidence about what treatments and medications work best for specific conditions. Here at DPM we work to create a base of knowledge that will enrich both health care systems and the quality of medical education.
Our affiliation with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a large health insurance company with diverse enrollees across New England, and Harvard Medical School, the preeminent medical education institution in the country, gives us a prime opportunity to study specific patient populations and integrate our findings into the health care setting and educational curriculum. DPM's Harvard-appointed faculty are involved in studies that examine and enhance the operation of health care settings to ensure that clinicians have access to the most up-to-date systems and data in their day-to-day practices. They study issues like medication safety and effectiveness, obesity prevention, nutrition, maternal and child health, vaccination policy, health care disparities, uses of electronic medical record technology, and cancer screening and prevention. In addition, DPM sponsors teaching programs for medical students and residents that provide training experiences in the types of settings where they will eventually practice. Our teaching programs instill both clinical skills and a sound knowledge of public and population health issues, including innovations in science and medicine, health care insurance systems, and disease prevention. We also have a thriving set of national partnerships for collaborative research and an international program that seeks to create better access to health care and medicine in developing countries.