Elizabeth Cox, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UW-Madison

Dr. Cox’s research seeks to improve children’s health outcomes by optimizing decision-making during pediatric healthcare visits.  Her work melds evidence-based practice approaches with the preferences and values of children and their parents.  Central to this effort are investigations of both child and parent participation in healthcare decision-making and how their participation changes with children’s development and in relation to family characteristics, provider characteristics, and specific health concerns.  Her work has produced validated tools to assess participation in decision making for visits that include a physician, a patient, and a caregiver, such as pediatric or geriatric visits.  Her studies have highlighted how frequently parents and children are only passively involved in decisions during acute pediatric visits.  Moreover, the work has identified both targets for interventions (e.g., less experienced physicians who have less participatory visits) and specific interventions (e.g., increasing time available for decision making) that may promote active participation by parents and children.