The Center for Health Studies at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound

Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound is a non-profit staff-model HMO serving 540,000 people in Washington and Idaho. The Center for Health Studies, formally affiliated with the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine, conducts research funded by the NIH, foundations, and other sources. It focuses on prevention, treatment of common problems in primary care, medications, mental health and cancer. The Center has a staff of over 200 and a funded annual budget of more than $17 million. Most of the scientific staff have faculty appointments and many research projects are conducted collaboratively with UW and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Its 150 research projects include randomized trials of conventional treatments, health care delivery interventions, and complementary and alternative medical treatments. The center staff includes experts in epidemiology, preventive medicine, health services research, biostatistics, behavioral sciences, computer sciences, operations research and survey research.