Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH

Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Medicine
Associate Professor, Washington University Brown School of Social Work
Co-Director, Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research

Related Links

Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research

Physician Profile

Research Profile

Education

  • A.B. Public and International Policy: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (2000)
  • MD: Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC (2004)
  • Residency, Internal Medicine: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC (2007)
  • Fellowship, Cardiology: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (2011)
  • Research Fellowship, Health Policy: Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA (2011)

Recognition

  • Secretary’s Award for Meritorious Service, United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2016
  • Lerner Research Fellowship for research excellence in junior faculty, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 2012
  • Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Heart Failure Research, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 2009-2010
  • Nanaline Duke Scholar, Duke University School of Medicine, 2000-2004
  • AB with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Princeton University, 2000

Clinical Interests

General cardiology; consultative cardiology

Research Interests

Dr. Joynt Maddox has three main areas of research, all focused on health equity. The first area of work is in quantifying inequities in health care quality and outcomes for historically marginalized populations including individuals living in poverty, individuals from racially or ethnically minoritized groups, individuals with disabilities, people living with frailty, and those in rural areas. The second area of work is in evaluating the impact of federal and state health policies, such as Medicare’s value-based and alternative payment models and state Medicaid expansions, on quality, outcomes, and costs, with a particular focus on their effect on racial, socioeconomic, and geographic inequities. The third area of work regards the ways in which social risk, disability, and frailty are used in risk prediction models for costs, utilization, and clinical events across a range of conditions, and how this might lead to over- or underestimates of risk and therefore inaccurate clinical interventions, quality measurement, and payment.