Center for Outcomes and Evidence

Joanna E. Siegel, R.N., S.M., S.D.

Joanna E. Siegel, R.N., S.M., S.D. received her undergraduate degree from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), and her masters in Health Policy and doctorate in Health Decision Sciences from Harvard School of Public Health. As faculty at Harvard School of Public Health from 1991 to 1997, her research focused on cost-effectiveness analysis and its applications in HIV/AIDS policy, diabetes, and drug policy, and health status measurement and policy issues affecting women and children.

Dr. Siegel spent 3 years at the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) working with the Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine to propose guidelines for the practice of cost-effectiveness analysis, serving as co-editor of the Panel's report. Relocating to Washington DC in 1997, she joined the newly-created Arlington Health Foundation as its Director of Evaluation, overseeing evaluation activities for the Foundation's $4 million annual grants program and developing its initiative in children's health.

Dr. Siegel joined AHRQ in 2000. She directs the Research Initiative in Clinical Economics, a program to support and promote the development of tools and knowledge for the efficient allocation of health care resources. In this capacity she has worked to improve the utility of cost-effectiveness for informing health policy decisions. Projects have included HHS coordination of a $1 million Institute of Medicine study on outcome measures for use in cost-effectiveness studies of regulations affecting health and safety, development of projects to produce a strategic plan for incorporating cost-effectiveness information in policy decisions and to evaluate current decision-making approaches that use health economic inputs, and development of a database of clinical economic studies.

For a description of the Research Initiative in Clinical Economics and its projects, go to: http://www.ahrq.gov/rice.

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