Steven A. Schroeder

Steven A. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. He served as the President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1990 to 2002. Schroeder is known for his work in promoting smoking cessation strategies.

Early Life & Education

Steven A. Schroeder was born and raised in El Cerrito, CA. He graduated from Stanford University in 1960 and entered Harvard Medical School, earning the M.D. in 1964. He trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital. He then became an officer of the Epidemiological Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control and held faculty appointments at Harvard and George Washington University. In 1976 UCSF Chair of Medicine, Lloyd “Holly” Smith, recruited Dr. Schroeder to the faculty, where he created a Division of General Internal Medicine (1980). He recruited a talented group of junior faculty, many of whom are still at UCSF.

Also in 1976 Schroeder became part of the core faculty in the Health Policy Program at UCSF, a program that evolved into a national Health Services Policy Analysis Center (1977). In 1981 it was renamed the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies (now the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies) and designated an Organized Research Unit by the UC Regents. In addition to his work in the Division of General Medicine, Dr. Schroeder published widely in health services research, often in collaboration with Jonathan Showstack, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

From 1990 to 2002, Steven Schroeder left UCSF to become President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. During his tenure at RWJF, he made over four billion dollars in grants and developed new programs in substance abuse, prevention and treatment; studies in end of life care; and the expansion of health insurance for children. As head of one of the nation’s premier foundations, he noted the general reluctance to become involved in smoking issues, for as he says, “the tobacco industry plays rough.” Nevertheless the RWJF eventually funded important programs providing information on tobacco’s health effects.

Smoking Cessation Leadership Center

In 2003 Schroeder returned to UCSF and serves as Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care in the Department of Medicine. He heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center (SCLC), a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Legacy Foundation, designed to work with health professionals and organizations to "narrow the gap between what should be done to help smokers quit, and what is currently done." A major project of the SCLC has been to mainstream smoking cessation treatments among populations victimized by smoking - those with mental health illnesses and substance use disorders.

Awards & Honors

Dr. Schroeder has received many honors and six honorary doctoral degrees. He is a director of the James Irvine Foundation, the Marin General Hospital, the Marin Community Foundation and the Robina Foundation, and former member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine (for 19 years) and former chair of the Health Care Services Board of the Institute of Medicine. He was also an Overseer of Harvard and President of the Harvard Medical Alumni Association. He formerly chaired the American Legacy Foundation, which recently named the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies in his honor. He has won numerous awards, including the Gustav O. Lienhard Award from the Institute of Medicine and the UCSF 150th Anniversary Alumni Excellence Award.

References

Smoking Cessation Leadership Center