Robert M. Kaplan

While at CASBS, Robert Kaplan will work on a project that tackles one of the most persistent challenges in medicine and public health—how to sustain healthy behavior change over time. Despite decades of research, interventions for smoking, diet, exercise, and substance use often produce only temporary results. We propose a new framework emphasizing the social ecosystems that shape behavior across the lifespan—family, peers, partners, colleagues, and community—and how these networks can reinforce or undermine long-term health. Drawing on prior CASBS fellowships and extensive experience in behavioral science, medicine, and policy, we plan to develop a book identifying novel, socioecological targets for maintaining health improvement, with a particular focus on midlife transitions.

Kaplan is a faculty member at the Stanford School of Medicine Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC). He previously served as Chief Science Officer at the US Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) and as Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health, where he led the behavioral and social sciences programs. He is also a Distinguished Research Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, where he previously led the UCLA/RAND AHRQ health services training program and the UCLA/RAND CDC Prevention Research Center.  Recently, Kaplan has taken on a new role as on opinion editorialist.  His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, The San Jose Mercury News, The San Francisco Chronicle, STAT News (Boston Globe Media), RealClear Politics, MedPage, Health Affairs, The Hill, and a variety of other newspapers.

Kaplan was a fellow at CASBS in 2015-16.