Michael Stoto, Ph.D

Michael Stoto is a professor of health services administration and population health at the Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health. Currently, Stoto is researching regionalization in local public health systems, and other aspects of public health preparedness. He is also conducting research on methodological topics in epidemiology, statistics, community health assessment, risk analysis, and performance measurement.

After receiving an A.B. in statistics from Princeton University, Stoto went on to receive both his A.M. and doctorate in statistics from Harvard. He served on the faculty at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute. Most recently, Stoto was a senior statistician at the RAND Corporation and the associate director for Public Health in the Center for Domestic and International Health Security.

Dr. Stoto has broad knowledge in the development of statistical and epidemiological methods and their application to guide public health policy. He has developed expertise in the use of systematic review and meta-analytic methods to assess the evidence about health risks. He is also a leader in the application of syndromic surveillance and related statistical methods in public health surveillance for analyzing large health databases to identify early disease outbreaks.

Under his HCFO grant, awarded in 2006 under a special Public Health Systems Research solicitation, Stoto is analyzing the justification for creating regional local public health systems. He and his colleagues conducted four comparative case studies to document the variation in justification for creating regional public health structures; understand how these structures have been organized, implemented, and governed; and assess the current impact of regional structures on public health preparedness. The case studies address surge capacity, coordination, workforce issues, and standardization in Massachusetts, Northern Illinois-Chicago, the Washington Metropolitan area, and Nebraska.

For more information on Michael Stoto and a list of selected publications please go to explore.georgetown.edu/people/stotom/.