David Arterburn, MD, MPH, is a general internist and health services researcher who focuses on finding safe, effective, and non-stigmatizing ways to treat obesity. As an international leader in obesity research, his goal is to help individuals and families make treatment decisions that align with their values while sustaining their health over the long haul.
Dr. Arterburn's research portfolio includes studies of the impact of neighborhood environments on obesity, mindfulness-based interventions for weight loss, obesity pharmacotherapy, the long-term outcomes of bariatric surgery, and implementation of shared decision making tools and processes. He recently led the PCORnet Bariatric Study, a two-year, $4.5 million study comparing the health benefits and safety associated with the main types of bariatric surgery in 41 health systems in the United States. Funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the study’s results give patients and their health care providers the information they need to decide which type of surgery is best for them. In July 2019, PCORI awarded Dr. Arterburn an additional $2.1 million to incorporate these new results into shared decision making at Kaiser Permanente Washington and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Over the past decade, Dr. Arterburn has collaborated with Kaiser Permanente Washington's specialty leadership to implement and evaluate shared decision making with patient decision aids to support elective surgical care. The approach has shown great promise for improving the quality of health care while simultaneously lowering the costs of care in some populations.
Dr. Arterburn collaborates extensively in his research and has federally-funded projects related to obesity and bariatric surgery with investigators at University of Washington (UW), Duke University, Harvard, University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, Wake Forest, and the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Arterburn joined Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in 2006. In recognition of his contributions to science, he has been named an honorary Fellow of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (FASMBS) and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP) and The Obesity Society (FTOS). Dr. Arterburn is past chair of the Adult Obesity Measurement Advisory Panel sponsored by the National Committee on Quality Assurance, founding chair of the Obesity Society's Health Services Research Section, and past chair of the Health Care Systems Research Network's Obesity Special Interest Group. In 2013 he co-chaired the National Institutes of Health Symposium on the Long-Term Outcomes of Bariatric Surgery. He is also an affiliate professor in the UW Department of Medicine.
Bariatric surgery; health services research; economics and risk adjustment; pharmaceutical outcomes research
Obesity prevention and control
Pharmaco-epidemiology, pharmacogenetics, pharmaceutical outcomes research
Shared decision making
Obesity prevention and control
Saxon DR, Iwamoto SJ, Mettenbrink CJ, McCormick E, Arterburn D, Daley MF, Oshiro CE, Koebnick C, Horberg M, Young DR, Bessesen DH. Antiobesity medication use in 2.2 million adults across eight large health care organizations: 2009-2015. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 Oct 11. doi: 10.1002/oby.22581. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Zhu Y, Sidell MA, Arterburn D, Daley MF, Desai J, Fitzpatrick SL, Horberg MA, Koebnick C, McCormick E, Oshiro C, Young DR, Ferrara A. Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Prevalence of Diabetes and Prediabetes by BMI: Patient Outcomes Research To Advance Learning (PORTAL) Multisite Cohort of Adults in the U.S. LID - dc190532 [pii] LID - 10.2337/dc19-0532 [doi] Diabetes Care. 2019 Dec;42(12):2211-2219. doi: 10.2337/dc19-0532. Epub 2019 Sep 19. PubMed
Aminian A, Zajichek A, Arterburn DE, Wolski KE, Brethauer SA, Schauer PR, Kattan MW, Nissen SE. Association of metabolic surgery with major adverse cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity. JAMA. 2019 Sep 2. pii: 2749478. doi: 10.1001/jama.2019.14231. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Lewis KH, Arterburn DE, Zhang F, Callaway K, Wallace J, Fernandez A, Ross-Degnan D, Wharam JF. Comparative effectiveness of vertical sleeve gastrectomy versus Roux en Y gastric bypass for diabetes treatment: a claims-based cohort study. Ann Surg. 2019 Jun 12. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000003391. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Li RA, Liu L, Arterburn D, Coleman KJ, Courcoulas AP, Fisher D, Haneuse S, Johnson E, Theis MK, Yoon TK, Fisher H, Fraser JR, Herrinton LJ. Five-year longitudinal cohort study of reinterventions after sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Ann Surg. 2019 Jun 7. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000003401. [Epub ahead of print].
Several new grants will fund research on effectiveness, safety, and equitable use of anti-obesity medications.
Study uses geographic data to track change over time.
Largest study to date helps patients weigh risks and benefits of surgery.
An evaluation with KPWHRI researchers looked at the impacts of the tax so far.