"The answer is in the data."

Raymond R. Arons (1941– )
Rocket Scientist, Healthcare Expert
MPH 1976, DrPH 1983

Dr. Raymond Arons earned his BS (Mechanical Engineering) in 1962 from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and both his MPH (Health Administration) in 1976, and his DrPH (Health Administration) in 1983 from Columbia University. Dr. Arons is a national expert in the study of secondary health-care data sets, and their use for answering a wide range of public health questions. He teaches P6781, "The Use of Large Scale Health Data Sets," to students from all departments at the Mailman school and a variety of schools at the Columbia University. In addition, he is director of the Mailman National Large Scale Health Data Center, a repository which contains over a billion patient records acquired from providers, and governmental and academic surveys, and makes them available to faculty and students for study. A large portion of the repository is provided in kind by the National Center for Health Statistics (NHDS), The New York Statewide Research and Planning Cooperative (SPARCS), the California Office of Statewide Planning (OSPHD) and among others.

Prior to employment at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Dr. Arons was chief data-systems engineer with Grumman Aerospace. He was on the design team of the lunar module rocket engines for the NASA Apollo Space Program. In 1969, Dr. Arons joined the staff at Presbyterian Hospital and was a member of its administrative staff for 26 years, working in a number of capacities including administrative assistant for Medical Affairs and director of the Office of Case Mix Studies.

Contributed by Raymond Yee, Columbia College 1982, School of Public Health 1985, who is solely responsible for the content.