Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention (CPOP)

The Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention (CPOP) was established in 2004 as a core program of the Department of Pediatrics to provide a strong foundation for the development of a nationally recognized child health services and policy research program. The need for this center was proposed by Dr. Alan Krensky (originally named Health Policy, Outcomes and Prevention), former executive director of the Children’s Health Initiative at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Paul H. Wise, MD, MPH, the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society was recruited to Stanford and served as the Founding Director of CPOP. In July 2014, C. Jason Wang, MD, PhD, was appointed new Director of CPOP. Other leaders include Lee M. Sanders, MD, MPH, Lisa Chamberlain, MD, MPH, Jochen Profit, MD, MPH, KT Park, MD, MS, Henry Lee, MD, Susan Fernandes, LPD, Christina Baggott, PhD, and Ewen Wang, MD.

Through its members’ scholarly work, CPOP has impacted the fields of health systems research and child health policy at the local, state and national levels. Its formation responded to the urgent need to generate the scholarship necessary to constructively reshape child health programs and policies during a period of unprecedented change in the capacities and financial basis of child health care in the United States and global settings. In order to achieve this goal, CPOP embarked on a strategy to address four related objectives:

1. Preeminent Child Health Policy Research. The central emphasis of CPOP has been to create a technically sophisticated research unit capable of addressing emerging challenges to child health in California and the United States. This activity has relied upon the integration of faculty already in the Department within a coordinated, policy research agenda.
2. Elevated Department of Pediatrics Public Policy Presence. To achieve academic preeminence in policy research, it has been essential that CPOP work to elevate the public engagement of the Department of Pediatrics in child health policy deliberations in the Bay Area, California and the United States.
3. Use Stanford’s Strengths to Address Global Child Health Challenges. All elite pediatric programs have embarked on global health initiatives. The approach adopted by CPOP was to develop a highly focused set of activities that address a critical child health issue by building upon a particular academic strength at Stanford. In response, CPOP has developed a university-wide research program bringing together researchers in child health with experts in global security and international political science.
4. Create a Basis for Innovative, Interdisciplinary Research Strategies. The nature of CPOP’s research and its position as a core program in the Department has required that CPOP create disciplinary interactions among faculty and trainees who ordinarily do not participate in collaborative research activities. Accordingly, CPOP has been active in developing new, analytic approaches to the investigation of major disorders affecting children in the United States. CPOP is also developing a mobile technology core, to train investigators in conducting research embracing technology as a tool for patient and provider engagement. This strategy has been implemented in a manner that would provide a foundation for enhancing interdisciplinary research and fundraising by the full Department of Pediatrics.