Elizabeth Barrett-Connor MD

Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD, FACP, FAHA, retired from active academic activities and from participation in the Forum on 1 April 2019.  She was a Distinguished Professor, Division of Epidemiology, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA USA.  She joined the UCSD faculty in 1970. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Cornell University Medical College. She completed her internal medicine internship and residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, with postgraduate training at the University of Miami. Her research concerns healthy aging with a focus on gender differences and women’s health. Dr. Barrett-Connor is founder and director of the Rancho Bernardo Heart and Chronic Disease Study, begun in 1972, with continuous support (4 MERIT awards) from the NIH. She served as a principal investigator of many multicenter clinical trials, including the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions trial, the Heart and Estrogen-Progestin Replacement Study, the Raloxifene Use in the Heart study, and the Diabetes Prevention Program Observational Study. She is Past President of the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the Epidemiology Council of the American Heart Association (AHA), the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER), and the American Epidemiological Society (AES). She is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Master of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and author of >900 publications.

Elizabeth Barrett-Connor’s research concerns healthy aging with a particular focus on gender differences and women’s health. Her pioneering work spans many areas including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, memory loss and exogenous and endogenous hormones. She is author of more than 700 publications. Epidemiologic studies of normative aging and diseases of adult life, particularly cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, menopause, memory loss, and lifestyle (diet, exercise, etc.). Both observational/analytic studies of an established cohort (Rancho Bernardo) and clinical trials are ongoing.

Dr. Barrett-Connor is founder and director of the Rancho Bernardo Heart and Chronic Disease Study, now in its 40th year, with continuous support from the National Institutes of Health, including four merit awards. The Rancho Bernardo Study has also received seminal support from the American Heart Association. She is (or was) Principal Investigator of several multi-center clinical trials including the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions (PEPI) study, the Heart and Estrogen-Progestin Replacement Study (HERS), the Raloxifene Use in The Heart (RUTH) trial, and is co-PI of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP).

Dr. Barrett-Connor has served as Chair of the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association; President of the Epidemiology Council of the American Heart Association; President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research; President of the American Epidemiological Society; Member of the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board, and of the Advisory Council of the National Institute on Aging, and of The NIH Fogarty International center. She is a Master of the American College of Physicians, and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.