Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH

“As the public-interest research arm of Kaiser Permanente Washington's learning health care system and a member of major research consortia, KPWHRI is honored to contribute to local and national health care improvements.”

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH

Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Professor of Health Services, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Former Executive Director, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Former Vice President, Research and Health Care Innovation, Kaiser Permanente Washington

Eric.B.Larson@kp.org
206-287-2988
Eric Larson on LinkedIn

Curriculum vitae (CV)

Biography

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, is a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. He served as the institute's executive director from 2002 through 2018, as well as vice president for research and health care innovation at Kaiser Permanente Washington from 2017 to 2018.

A general internist, Dr. Larson is a national leader in geriatrics, health services, and clinical research and has been an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine since 2007. He pursues an array of research, ranging from clinical interests such as Alzheimer’s disease and genomics to health services research involving technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, learning health systems, and quality improvement. His research on aging includes a longstanding collaboration between Kaiser Permanente Washington and the University of Washington (UW) called the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study. Among ACT’s many groundbreaking findings:

Regular exercise is linked to reduced risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and declines in how well people think.
Use of larger amounts of common medications that have strong anticholinergic side effects is linked to higher risks for developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Risk for dementia in old age can be linked to early life factors, such as socioeconomic status, education, and midlife vascular risk factors.
Risk for dementia is also tied to high blood sugar levels, even without diabetes.

With colleagues from Duke and Harvard, Dr. Larson established and now helps lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund’s Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory. The Collaboratory sponsors pragmatic clinical trials and aims to improve the way clinical trials are conducted so that patients and care providers have access to the best available clinical evidence for decision-making. Dr. Larson is also the principal investigator for the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) project at KPWHRI and the UW. The goal of eMERGE research is to better understand the genomic basis of disease to tailor medical care to individual patients based on their genomic differences.

Dr. Larson has written or co-authored more than a dozen books, including 2017’s Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for Long, Active Life, which draws from his decades of work as a physician and the leader of the ACT study. He has also published more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Until 2019, Dr. Larson maintained a small but longstanding internal medicine practice. He served as medical director for the UW Medical Center and associate dean for clinical affairs at its medical school from 1989 to 2002. He is a member and past president of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM), having received their highest honor, the Robert J. Glaser Award, in 2004. Dr. Larson is also a master of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and served on its Board of Regents for nearly a decade, including one term as chair. He was a commissioner on The Joint Commission from 1999 to 2010.

Research interests and experience

Aging & Geriatrics
Dementia, cognitive health; quality of life; quality of care; genomic advances
Chronic Illness Management

Self-management; prevention
Health Informatics

eHealth
Health Services & Economics

Chronic illness; cost effectiveness analysis; performance measurement and incentives
Medication Use & Patient Safety

Pharmacogenetics; drug safety
Patient/Provider Interaction

Self-management; patient/provider relationships

Recent publications

Shang N, Khan A, Polubriaginof F, Zanoni F, Mehl K, Fasel D, Drawz PE, Carrol RJ, Denny JC, Hathcock MA, Arruda-Olson AM, Peissig PL, Dart RA, Brilliant MH, Larson EB, Carrell DS, Pendergrass S, Verma SS, Ritchie MD, Benoit B, Gainer VS, Karlson EW, Gordon AS, Jarvik GP, Stanaway IB, Crosslin DR, Mohan S, Ionita-Laza I, Tatonetti NP, Gharavi AG, Hripcsak G, Weng C, Kiryluk K. Medical records-based chronic kidney disease phenotype for clinical care and "big data" observational and genetic studies. NPJ Digit Med. 2021;4(1):70. doi: 10.1038/s41746-021-00428-1. PubMed

Park S, Jung J, Larson EB. Preventable health behaviors, COVID-19 severity perceptions, and vaccine uptake in traditional medicare and medicare advantage: a survey-based study. J Gen Intern Med. 2021 Apr 12:1-4. doi: 10.1007/s11606-021-06801-w. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Larson EB, Stroud C. Meeting the challenge of caring for persons living with dementia and their care partners and caregivers: a report from the national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine. JAMA. 2021 Apr 9. doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.4928. Online ahead of print. PubMed

Larson EB. In older adults, adding fall-risk screening with targeted interventions to mailed advice did not reduce fractures. Ann Intern Med. 2021 Apr 6. doi: 10.7326/ACPJ202104200-046. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Walker RL, Greenwood-Hickman MA, Bellettiere J, LaCroix AZ, Wing D, Higgins M, Richmire K, Larson EB, Crane PK, Rosenberg DE. Associations between physical function and device-based measures of physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns in older adults: moving beyond moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity. BMC Geriatr. 2021 Mar 31;21(1):216. doi: 10.1186/s12877-021-02163-4. PubMed

Postupna N, Rose SE, Gibbons LE, Coleman NM, Hellstern LL, Ritchie K, Wilson AM, Cudaback E, Li X, Melief EJ, Beller AE, Miller JA, Nolan AL, Marshall DA, Walker R, Montine TJ, Larson EB, Crane PK, Ellenbogen RG, Lein ES, Dams-O'Connor K, Keene CD. The delayed neuropathological consequences of traumatic brain injury in a community-based sample. Front Neurol. 2021 Mar 16;12:624696. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.624696. eCollection 2021. PubMed

Lee CS, Lee ML, Gibbons LE, Yanagihara RT, Blazes M, Kam JP, McCurry SM, Bowen JD, McCormick WC, Lee AY, Larson EB, Crane PK. Associations between retinal artery/vein occlusions and risk of vascular dementia. J Alzheimers Dis. 2021;81(1):245-253. doi: 10.3233/JAD-201492. PubMed

Park S, Jung J, Burke RE, Larson EB. Trends in use of low-value care in traditional fee-for-service Medicare and Medicare Advantage. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(3):e211762. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.1762. PubMed

Henrikson NB, Scrol A, Leppig KA, Ralston JD, Larson EB, Jarvik GP. Preferences of biobank participants for receiving actionable genomic test results: results of a recontacting study. Genet Med. 2021 Jun;23(6):1163-1166. doi: 10.1038/s41436-021-01111-2. Epub 2021 Feb 18. PubMed

Makhnoon S, Bowen DJ, Shirts BH, Fullerton SM, Larson EB, Ralston JD, Leppig KA, Crosslin DR, Veenstra D, Jarvik GP. The FamilyTalk randomized controlled trial: patient-reported outcomes in clinical genetic sequencing for colorectal cancer. Cancer Causes Control. 2021 Feb 16. doi: 10.1007/s10552-021-01398-1. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed