Rachel Gold, PhD, MPH

Dr. Rachel Gold is a senior investigator and the program director of chronic disease, preventive health and wellness at OCHIN. By training, Rachel is an epidemiologist and health services researcher. Her research asks how health information technology can reduce differential health outcomes and what implementation methods can best support community clinics’ adoption of such technologies. She has worked with OCHIN since 2005.  

Her past research includes studying the impact of an initiative at Kaiser Permanente targeting cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes care for community clinics, and the comparative effectiveness of implementation strategies at supporting its adoption. She then studied the impact of an innovative point-of-care risk assessment tool on CVD outcomes in community clinics. 

She also developed and pilot-tested informatics tools for documenting and addressing patient-reported drivers of health and studied how to help community clinics adopt social risk screening and referral-making. She now studies how to use informatics tools to help minimize the impact of social risks on patients’ ability to follow care plans.  

Rachel leads the Building Research in Implementation and Dissemination laboratory to close gaps in the Cancer Control Center, which studies how to improve cancer preventive services in community clinics. Additionally, she co-leads the Network for Community-Engaged Primary Care Research site involving OCHIN, which studies how to better engage rural and medically underserved patients in studies of chronic disease management.