Stephen Bezruchka

Stephen Bezruchka MD, MPH, AM (pronounced bez rootch ka)

Stephen Bezruchka, a graduate of Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities, teaches courses in population health in the Departments of Health Systems and Population Health and of Global Health as faculty in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. There he received the 2002 Outstanding Teacher Award, the 2008 Faculty Community Service Award, the 2017 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award and the 2018 Communicating Public Health to the Public Award. He worked clinically as a doctor for 35 years including three decades as an emergency physician. He spent over 11 years in Nepal, writing the first trekking guide to that country, running a community health project a week’s walk from the road, training Nepali doctors in a remote district hospital and advancing concepts of population health. He focuses on creating greater public understanding of the determinants of health through teaching, talking and writing at various levels from middle school onward. He created the Population Health Forum in 1997. He serves on the board of directors of the Washington Physicians For Social Responsibility and works with its Economic Inequity Health Task Force.