Rishi Wadhera

Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil

Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil is a cardiologist, health policy researcher, and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As Associate Director of the Smith Center for Outcomes Research and founding Director of the Section of Health Policy Research, he leads a large, NIH-funded research enterprise focused on health policy, population health, and cardiovascular outcomes.

Under his leadership, the Health Policy Section has grown into a large, multidisciplinary team of investigators, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff, supported by a dedicated data, analytic, and biostatistical infrastructure. The program serves as a platform for generating high-impact scholarship that informs state and national health policy while training the next generation of academic leaders in health policy and cardiovascular outcomes. His program has produced more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, including first- and senior-author work in leading journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA, and is supported by multiple NIH R01 grants and the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award.

His work has directly informed federal health policy and clinical guidelines and has been cited in Congressional testimony, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reports, and national clinical practice guidelines. He has advised senior leaders at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Congressional committees, and his research has been featured in major national media outlets including the New York Times, NBC News, and NPR.

A defining feature of his work is mentorship and faculty development. He has mentored more than 40 junior investigators who have collectively first-authored more than 110 publications and secured competitive career development awards, with many advancing to independent academic careers across the country.

Research Areas

Our work focuses on how health policies, reforms, and systems shape access to care, affordability, quality and value, and clinical outcomes across the United States. Our research leverages large-scale real-world data and advanced econometric, epidemiological, and statistical methods to rigorously evaluate the impact of health policies and reforms.

Health Policy Evaluation
Evaluating how major U.S. health policies—including the Affordable Care Act, Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare reforms, and safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP—shape care delivery and clinical outcomes.

Access to Care, Affordability, & Value
Examining how health care costs, insurance coverage, and economic factors influence access to care, utilization, and the value of care across populations.

Health Systems and Population Health
Assessing how health system performance, care delivery models, and structural factors drive quality of care and outcomes across diverse populations, including individuals with low incomes and those living in rural communities.

Cardiovascular Outcomes
Defining how health policy and health systems influence cardiovascular outcomes, with a focus on improving equity and population-level health.