John W. Farquhar

John W. Farquhar
Professor California
Stanford University School of Medicine
USA

Biography

John W. Farquhar, M.D., a cardiologist and epidemiologist, is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Health Research and Policy, founder and member, Stanford Prevention Research Center, and the first holder of the C. F. Rehnborg Professorship in Disease Prevention in the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is the founder and former Director of Stanford’s Prevention Research Center and of its Preventive Cardiology Clinic. He is an active member of Stanford’s Health Improvement Program and its Health Promotion Research Center and a member of many organizations devoted to global health. He was born in Canada, but moved to the United States at the age of 13, and had his subsequent education in California, including Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco.Dr. Farquhar began his interest in disease prevention shortly after graduating from Medical School, when he realized that far too many men and women in our society were dying young. This concern led him to specialize in cardiology and the metabolic origins of atherosclerosis. Four years at the Rockefeller University and early research after he joined the Stanford faculty in 1962 gave him a solid grounding in the causes of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and adult-onset cancers. From his experience with his patients he realized that cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases were caused largely by cultural and environmental factors that create our health habits and suggested to him the need for a "total community" educational and regulatory approach.