Course Overview

Barbara Starfield, a physician and health services researcher, was a university distinguished professor and professor of health policy and paediatrics at Johns Hopkins University. She is internationally known for her work in primary care, and her books are widely recognized as the seminal works in the field. She was instrumental in leading projects to develop important methodological tools, including the Primary Care Assessment Tool, the CHIP tools (to assess adolescent and child health status), and the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups (ACGs) for assessment of diagnosed morbidity burdens reflecting degrees of co-morbidity. She was the co-founder and first president of the International Society for Equity in Health, a scientific organization devoted to the dissemination of knowledge about the determinants of inequity in health and ways to eliminate them. Her work thus focuses on quality of care, health status assessment, primary care evaluation, and equity in health. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine and served on its governing council, and she was a member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and many other government and professional committees and groups.