Ron Goetzel is a Senior Scientist and Director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies (IHPS) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The mission of the IHPS is to bridge the gap between academia, the business community, and the healthcare policy world – bringing academic resources into policy debates and day-to-day business decisions and bringing worker health and productivity management concerns to academia. Before moving to Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Goetzel was on the faculty at Emory and Cornell Universities. Dr. Goetzel is responsible for leading innovative measurement and evaluation projects for healthcare purchaser, provider, government, and foundation clients engaged in cutting-edge research focused on the relationship between health and well-being, medical costs, and work-related productivity. He is an internationally recognized and widely published expert in health and productivity management (HPM), return-on-investment (ROI), program evaluation, and outcomes research. Dr. Goetzel has published well over 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and frequently presents at international business and scientific forums.

Dr. Goetzel is a principal investigator (PI) for a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Total Worker Health® Center of Excellence for Mental Health in the Workplace. Dr. Goetzel has worked with the World Bank Group (WBG), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Johnson & Johnson on strategic initiatives focused on employee health and wellbeing. He served as PI for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study examining the relationship between an organization’s culture of health, employees’ health risks, medical costs, and company stock price. Dr. Goetzel served as PI on a five-year project sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) focused on obesity prevention in the workplace. He was PI for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Senior Risk Reduction Demonstration, New Opportunities for Healthy Aging in Medicare, and demonstrations focused on Cancer Prevention and Treatment for Ethnic and Racial Minorities, Chiropractic Care, Vision Rehabilitation, and Health Improvement Incentive Structures for Medicaid Beneficiaries. He also served as PI for the Federal Employee Worksite Health and Wellness Initiative administered by the Office of Personnel Management. For the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Goetzel was PI for a New York City-based project supporting collaboration between the private and public sectors directed at employer health promotion programs. He was the PI on two CDC initiatives focused on updating the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard and building a comprehensive CDC Workplace Health Resource Center.

Dr. Goetzel worked with the Department of Defense (DoD) on two health promotion and resilience training demonstrations for the U.S. Army and Air Force. He supported the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the evaluation contractor for the Healthy Base Initiative focused on managing obesity and tobacco use in the military. Dr. Goetzel has worked with the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington DC supporting the CEO Council on Health and Innovation and an initiative to build partnerships between businesses and public health departments to improve community health. He has also led significant policy initiatives with the de Beaumont and CDC Foundations focused on increasing collaboration between business and public health.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Goetzel was a vice president at IBM Watson Health and Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Goetzel was one of the original members of the core development and marketing group at Corporate Health Strategies. Earlier in his career, Dr. Goetzel was the Medical School Education Program Evaluator at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he was appointed to the Psychiatry faculty.