Vic Stevens, PhD, is a research psychologist who conducts research on how to change unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking or eating a high-fat, high-sugar diet. For more than 20 years at CHR, Dr. Stevens has been on the forefront of a movement to help people help themselves by making lifestyle changes. His research explores how people stop smoking, lose weight, eat healthfully, and reduce their risk of preventable diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

After receiving his doctorate from Washington State University, Dr. Stevens did basic research on how animals learn and relate. He switched gears and has since focused on health behavior change, especially in the realm of primary prevention—to eliminate the negative health behaviors that lead to preventable, but devastating, diseases. His health behavior research focuses on techniques that make it possible for people to change when they are ready.

Dr. Stevens was the first director of CHR's Health Behavior Clinic. He helped thousands of smokers quit in a series of research projects conducted at the CHR. He went on to design both smoking cessation and weight loss programs for Kaiser Permanente Northwest employees and patients. Kaiser Permanente was one of the first HMOs to create in-house employee health behavior change and prevention programs.

CHR has gone on to serve as a clinical center or a coordinating center for several major health behavior change studies including MR FIT, the Trials of Hypertension Prevention, the Dietary Intervention Study in Children, the Women's Health Initiative, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), the Lifestyle Intervention for Blood Pressure Control, and the Weight Loss Maintenance study.

His research is on the vanguard in a number of areas including health behavior change, dissemination of proven preventive medicine programs, and cost effectiveness analyses of health behavior programs. Dr. Stevens also works on policy studies that will help HMOs formally incorporate health behavior change programs into routine medical care.

Current Studies:

	Adolescent Diet, Hormones and Breast Cancer Susceptibility Project — DISC II
	Helping Women Adopt a Cancer Prevention Diet—DIET
	Metabolic Consequences of Low and High Carbohydrate Diets — INSIGHT
	Overweight and Obesity Control at Worksites
	Primary Care Treatment for Overweight Adolescent Females — SHINE
	Weight Loss Maintenance Trial Coordinating Center — WLM
	Women's Health Initiative—WHI

Recently Completed Studies:

	Assessing the Cost-Effectiveness of Two Treatment Protocols in Eradicating Heliobacter Pylori—HPYLORI
	Cancer Research Network: HMOs Investigating Tobacco—HIT2
	Development of a method to assess obesity and its treatment through analysis of electronic medical records
	Lifestyle Change to Increase Bone Density in Teen Girls—YOUTH
	Lifestyle Intervention for Blood Pressure Control—PREMIER COORDINATING CENTER
	Promoting Healthy Lifestyles: Alternative Model's Effect— PHLAME
	Tobacco Control in Managed Care: Implementation Effectiveness and Impact on Cost of Care
	Trials of Hypertension Prevention, Phase II- TOHP II
	Using Electronic Medical Records to Measure and Improve Adherence to Tobacco Treatment Guidelines in Primary Care — HIT2

E-mail: Victor.J.Stevens@kpchr.org