Elizabeth Tarlov, PhD, RN is the Director of the Division of Extramural Science Programs of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).
Dr. Tarlov joined NINR in April 2022. She previously held dual appointments as Research Health Scientist in the Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare, Edward Hines, Jr. Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital and Associate Professor of Population Health Nursing Science, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing. Dr. Tarlov earned a PhD in Health Policy and Administration (UIC), MS in Nursing (Family Nurse Practitioner; Pace University), and BA in American Studies (Middlebury College). Dr. Tarlov completed postdoctoral training in the Midwest Center for Health Services and Policy Research, Hines VA Hospital. She began her nursing career as a family nurse practitioner, providing primary care to migrant farm workers and their families and later in community health centers and other settings.
Dr. Tarlov has a long-standing commitment to research on the social determinants of health. Her program of research integrated individual, institutional, and community-level data to identify impacts of policy and the environment on adult health and behavior, healthcare outcomes, and health inequities. As an innovator in record linkages, Dr. Tarlov’s research program creatively leveraged the vast data resources of the VA in combination with external public and proprietary data sources to obtain new insights into contextual influences on health and healthcare effectiveness. She has also conducted methodological work focused on derivation of valid measures of individuals’ social and economic characteristics from raw administrative data. She has been PI, MPI, or Co-I of numerous grants funded by NIH, VA, and PCORI. She has published widely including in Health Services Research, Medical Care, Obesity, and Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.
Dr. Tarlov’s previous leadership roles include Associate Director of the VA Information Resource Center; Chair, VA Nursing Research Field Advisory Committee; Board of Directors, Heartland Health Centers (2005-2013; elected Chairperson 2006-2009); and Steering Committee, Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (CAPriCORN) (2014-present).