Rita Kukafka DrPH, MA, FACMI

Rita Kukafka, DrPH, MA, FACMI, is a nationally recognized leader in patient-centered biomedical informatics whose work has helped shape data-driven decision support for prevention and patient decision-making. She is Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Sociomedical Sciences (retired) and currently serves part-time as a Special Research Scientist. Her research focuses on integrating patient-generated and electronic health record data to improve risk prediction and develop decision support tools for precision prevention. Spanning biomedical informatics, population health, and behavioral science, her work emphasizes the human-centered design of patient-facing interventions and rigorous evaluation of their effects on risk perception, decision quality, and uptake of preventive therapies.

Dr. Kukafka has received more than 30 years of continuous NIH funding and has led multiple NIH-funded randomized implementation-effectiveness trials evaluating decision support for preventive care, including predictive genetic testing and chemoprevention. She is currently the principal investigator of an NCI-funded R01 examining breast cancer chemoprevention decision-making in the context of cardiovascular disease prevention. This work uses a human-centered design approach to refine and evaluate patient- and provider-facing decision-support tools (RealRisks and BNAV) to improve informed decision-making and increase uptake of chemoprevention among high-risk women. Her recent research identifies a systematic divergence in women’s decisions about statins versus breast cancer chemoprevention, reflecting the interplay of medication beliefs, emotional heuristics, and health system structures. This work informs a novel framework for patient-facing decision support that reframes chemoprevention within a broader class of risk-reducing medications, offering a new strategy to improve uptake.

Dr. Kukafka received a Master of Public Health from New York University and a Doctor of Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. After working in state and local health departments, she returned to Columbia, where she completed a National Library of Medicine postdoctoral fellowship and earned a second master’s degree in biomedical informatics. She served as Director of the Graduate Training Program in Biomedical Informatics from 2008 to 2013 and was appointed Chief Diversity Officer for the Department of Biomedical Informatics in 2021. She is an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a member of the New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Kukafka has served two terms on the Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), chaired the Consumer Health Informatics Working Group, served on an Institute of Medicine committee addressing the question, Who Will Keep the Public Healthy in the 21st Century?, and previously served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). She has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and books in biomedical informatics. Her current work explores patient-facing AI that integrates risk prediction with decision science, behavioral science, and human-centered design to support informed and actionable patient decisions.