• Stephen P. Fortmann, M.D.
  Assistant Program Director, Science Programs Department
  Senior Investigator, at the Center for Health Research, Northwest Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. Former Professor and Director, Stanford Prevention Research Center.

The former division chief, Stephen Fortmann, MD, is now a senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon.  Dr. Fortmann was appointed the C.F. Rehnborg Professor in Disease Prevention at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1999 - 2010.  He is also served as professor of medicine in general internal medicine and professor of health research and policy in epidemiology.

Dr. Fortmann’s principal research interest is the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease in populations and individuals.  He was project director of the Stanford Five-City Project beginning in 1979 and was principal investigator of this project from 1992 to its end in 1998.  The Five-City Project was a long-term trial testing the effectiveness of community-wide health education on lowering cardiovascular disease risk, morbidity, and mortality.  Other research interests include cardiovascular disease epidemiology, smoking cessation, tobacco control policy, nutrition and nutrition education, blood pressure control, and lipid disorders.  He has published more than 160 articles in the scientific literature.

Dr. Fortmann graduated from Stanford in 1970 and obtained his MD from the University of California, San Francisco in 1974.  After completing an internal medicine residency at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, he completed a fellowship in cardiovascular disease epidemiology and prevention at Stanford.  In 1998 he was appointed director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, having served as deputy director since 1987.

Dr. Fortmann is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and past chair of the AHA Council on Epidemiology and Prevention.  He is also a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Epidemiology, and the Society for Behavioral Medicine. In 2005 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.