Marissa Reitsma

marissa reitsma profilephoto

Marissa Reitsma, PhD

  • Interim Instructor, Department of Health Policy

Biography

Marissa Reitsma, PhD, is an Interim Instructor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine. She obtained her PhD in Health Policy at Stanford in 2024, during which time she was a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, Stanford Data Science Scholar, and NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Previously, she worked on the Global Burden of Disease Study at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Reitsma develops computational models to quantify disease burden, evaluate the benefits and costs of interventions, and support evidence-based policies across a range of priorities in public health, with a focus on health equity.

Reitsma aims to build simulation models that integrate the overlapping risk factors, social determinants, and syndemic conditions that disproportionately impact marginalized populations and contribute to health inequities. She also investigates the potential for multimodal data synthesis to inform these models, improve population health decision-making, and reduce health disparities. Her work spans multiple communicable and non-communicable conditions linked to behavioral risk factors, including tobacco use, drug use, and obesity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she collaborated closely with state and local public health agencies to inform their decision-making.

In The News

Elderly Woman with Cane
News

Examining Opportunities to Increase Savings From Medicare Price Negotiations

SHP's Marissa Reitsma and Michelle Mello conduct an original investigation that finds allowing the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare may improve drug affordability.
cover link Examining Opportunities to Increase Savings From Medicare Price Negotiations
COVID-19 disparities illustration
News

Stanford Researchers Document Progress, Missed Opportunities in Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake

Unequal COVID-19 vaccination rates in the United States have compounded existing disparities in cases, hospitalizations and deaths among Black and Hispanic populations. SHP researchers quantify how differential vaccine uptake by race and ethnicity within each US state produced substantial vaccination coverage disparities during the initial scale-up among older adults.
cover link Stanford Researchers Document Progress, Missed Opportunities in Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake
Woman gets vaccinated.
News

SHP-Kaiser Collaboration on Estimates and Projections of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage

Stanford Health Policy and the Kaiser Family Foundation are collaborating to examine the disparities in meeting vaccination benchmarks by using state-reported vaccination data by race/ethnicity and projecting vaccine coverage going forward.
cover link SHP-Kaiser Collaboration on Estimates and Projections of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage