About

Dr. Matthew Strehlow is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University, serving as Executive Vice Chair and head of strategy for the Department of Emergency Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the University of Washington and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine along with the Global Emergency Medicine Fellowship at Stanford. His work has a sustained focus on global health and health systems strengthening, directing the Stanford WHO Collaborating Center on Learning During Health Emergencies and serving as a Senior Advisor and Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health. Dr. Strehlow is a leader in emergency medicine education and innovation, leveraging data and technology to advance acute care through an approach known as precision emergency medicine. His research encompasses the use of AI and novel technologies to improve learning, epidemiology of health emergencies, development of emergency care systems in low- and middle-income countries, and the intersection of planetary and human health. He has led projects studying 'just-in-time' learning during health emergencies and the impact of climate change on pediatric emergency care needs in South Asia. His training programs have reached hundreds of thousands of learners and improved care for millions of patients worldwide. Additionally, he chairs the Education Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians and directs the Stanford WHO Collaborating Center on Learning During Health Emergencies.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Nursing
• Political Science
• Emergency medicine
• Medical education
• Family medicine
• Medical emergency
• Computer Science
• Internal medicine
• Demography
• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Pathology
• Anesthesia
• Business
• Pediatrics
• Data science
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• A Review of Web-Based Information on Chroming -a Social Media Trend

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Short-term PM2.5 exposure disproportionately increases pediatric ambulance dispatches among girls and children under age five in India

  npj Clean Air · 2026-02-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) remains a major driver of healthcare system strain in India, where annual concentrations average 48 μg/m 3 -nearly tenfold the WHO guideline. To examine how short-term PM 2.5 exposure affects acute healthcare utilization, we merge daily high-resolution PM 2.5 estimates with 1.1 million pediatric ambulance dispatch records across 11 states and union territories, and apply a two-stage fixed-effects instrumental variable approach leveraging thermal inversion duration to isolate exogenous variation in pollution. We find that a 10 μg/m 3 increase in PM 2.5 leads to same-day increases in ambulance dispatches of 3.78% (95% CI: 2.56–5.20) for all causes, 3.25% (1.58–4.84) for illness, and 6.07% (2.84–9.17) for injury. Cumulative seven-day effects remain elevated for all-cause (2.33%, 0.72–4.18) and illness (2.60%, 0.82–4.72) dispatches, indicating persistent impacts on emergency care demand. Girls experience disproportionately larger increases -5.41% (3.01–8.35) versus 2.38% (0.18–4.04) in boys-likely due to delayed care-seeking, greater baseline vulnerability, and higher exposure to non-accidental trauma. Children aged 0–4 years show the largest and most sustained increases in dispatches, whereas older children exhibit attenuated or null responses, reflecting age-related differences in susceptibility and access. Reducing annual PM 2.5 to India’s national guideline (40 μg/m 3 ) could avert 20 (6-35) pediatric ambulance dispatches per 100,000 children annually-a 10.1% reduction; achieving the WHO standard (5 μg/m 3 ) could prevent 65 (21–111)-a 32.8% reduction. These findings underscore the urgent need for targeted air quality improvements to reduce acute healthcare burdens and strengthen emergency response capacity in India’s strained healthcare system.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Editorial: Learning interventions and training: providing support during health emergencies

  Frontiers in Public Health · 2025-04-25 · 1 citations

  editorialOpen access

  The COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed the importance of just-in-time learning on a massive scale. Since the beginning of the pandemic, people sought trusted information and knowledge to protect themselves, their families and their communities from this new and emerging health threat. The World Health Organization's OpenWHO.org learning platform saw a surge in demand, growing from thousands of enrolments to more than 9 million across free online courses on the pandemic and public health topics.Affected communities must also be empowered to ensure information reaches the people who need it most, as evidenced in the recent World Health Organization's just-in-time guidance. (WHO, 2024). Drawing on available evidence and operational insights, the guidance provides practical strategies to empower health professionals, policy-makers, emergency responders, volunteers and communities. Production of the guidance also identified large gaps in what we know and need to know to better respond to health emergencies where just-in-time learning is required. This Special Issue provides a mechanism for researchers and practitioners to publish additional and much needed evidence.The articles in this Special Issue describe how public health and learning professionals have provided learning interventions to strengthen health emergency response by addressing and mitigating the impacts of infectious threats, natural hazards, humanitarian crises and armed conflicts. In all of these contexts, it has been vital to provide learning opportunities to support health professionals, emergency responders and the public with life-saving information, tools and skills to respond effectively.More specifically, the 16 articles in the research topic "Learning Interventions and Training: Providing Support during Health Emergencies" focus on various strategies for enhancing healthcare workers' capacity to manage health emergencies. They cover themes such as continued education, just-in-time learning for healthcare workers, the evolving role of innovative, digital tools and mobile platforms and virtual simulations. The breadth of research across these areas provides diverse insights through different contexts, geographical focuses and explorations of specific health crises and interventions.New frameworks and initiatives are identified that can support further interventions in future health emergencies (D'Andrea et al., 2025;Mills et al. 2024;Mayigane et al, 2024). D'Andrea et al (2025; 2024) highlight the benefits of virtual learning in low-resource and conflict-affected settings and provide a framework for anticipatory digital learning. Strehlow et al ( 2024) demonstrate the potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs) to rapidly provide access to emerging medical knowledge during public health emergencies particularly in high-and middleincome countries. Barnadas et al (2025) explore the usefulness of knowledge sharing sessions specific for the laboratory workforce held between 2020 and 2023. Elhakim et al ( 2024) highlight the existing frameworks provided by the WHO, including through voluntary tools provided under the International Health Regulations' (2025) Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, and their benefits to enhancing resilience and country readiness for health emergencies. Balde et al ( 2025) explore the lessons learned from the emergency medical teams' initiative noting a need for enhanced training and capacity-building programs. Pandya et al ( 2024) highlight the usefulness of simulation exercises to support low-cost and low-resource learning for disaster preparedness.Common challenges to learning and knowledge transfer are cited across these articles including internet connectivity, different contexts, resource limitations, and additional training needs (Barnadas et al., 2025;Bonkoungou et al., 2025;Southworth et al, 2024;Zhu et al, 2024;Reynolds et al, 2024;Balde et al, 2024). Common benefits to the successful deployment of learning interventions and training to provide support during or for future health emergencies are similarly uncovered. These include cost-efficiency and adaptability of online learning, more timely responses, greater access and equity among learners, and positive responses of learners to the relevance and usefulness of the learning itself (Barnadas et al, 2025;Bonkoungou et al., 2025;Tian et al, 2024;Walldorf et al, 2024;Zhong et al, 2024).Sharing knowledge and enhancing just-in-time learning will make a difference in the health crises of the future. We hope to encourage more health emergency response institutions and professionals to invest in capabilities for just-in-time learning and continue producing evidence of this critical work, acknowledging it is a huge task amidst the hours of response.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Precision acute medical care through “-omic” analyses: a scoping review

  Personalized Medicine · 2025-05-04

  reviewOpen access

  BACKGROUND: -Omics technologies - including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics - are increasingly used in acute care settings. However, the current extent of this research has not been systematically assessed. OBJECTIVES: To characterize how -omics analyses are applied to acute medical conditions and identify trends, gaps, and implementation barriers. METHODS: Eligible studies included human subjects with acute conditions and used -omics biosample analyses for diagnostic, prognostic, or predictive purposes. Feedback from the SAEM Precision Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference informed the search and inclusion criteria. Studies of infectious diseases were excluded for separate analysis. RESULTS: Of 7,531 screened articles, 421 met inclusion criteria. Most were observational cohort studies, with single nucleotide polymorphism analysis being most common. Cardiovascular and trauma-related conditions were frequently studied. Only 12.4% of studies included children, and just 7 focused exclusively on older adults. One-third were conducted outside of emergency departments. Many studies addressed diverse, uncategorized acute conditions. CONCLUSIONS: While -omics research in acute care is growing, it remains predominantly observational with limited clinical implementation. Barriers include delayed turnaround times, insufficient EHR integration, and underrepresentation of vulnerable populations. Advancing this field requires cross-disciplinary collaboration, focused research priorities, and investment in implementation studies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Intimate Partner Violence Among Foreign Born Women: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (2010)

  Journal of Family Violence · 2025-04-05 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Intimate partner violence is estimated to affect at least one third of women in the U.S. during their lifetime, and women who have immigrated (i.e., foreign born) may be more at risk. Foreign born women may also be less likely to seek formal help due to a variety of barriers. We use data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to determine nationwide prevalence of intimate partner violence and help-seeking patterns among foreign born women, regardless of country of origin, compared to U.S. born women. Approximately 66% (N = 5192) of respondents reported experiencing at least one type of violence. Of survey respondents reporting a country of origin, 8.7% (N = 872) were born in a foreign country. Reports of violence were higher among U.S. born versus foreign born women (46.5% vs. 39.4%, p-value < 0.001), but there was more missing data amongst the latter group. Seeking of help from formal sources was less common among foreign born women compared to U.S. born women (40.7% vs. 60.7%, p-value < 0.0001). As foreign born women were less likely to answer any questions on violence compared to U.S. born women, these data likely do not capture the full extent of intimate partner violence in this population. Improving response rates among foreign born participants will be crucial in improving the understanding of help-seeking patterns and better targeting of resources and other interventions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Short-term health impacts of PM2.5 exposure on pediatric ambulance dispatches in India using air quality data developed by machine learning

  2025-03-15

  preprintOpen accessCorresponding

  Poor ambient air quality poses a significant global health concern. However, accurate measurement remains challenging, particularly in countries like India, where ground monitors are scarce despite high expected exposure and health burdens. This lack of precise measurements impedes understanding of changes in pollution exposure over time and across populations, limiting effective public health responses. India faces severe air pollution issues, with fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels consistently exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, leading to various health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, injuries, and deaths. Existing health impact research on PM2.5 in India is limited, particularly for pediatric populations in diverse and socioeconomically varied regions.In this study, we developed an open-source daily PM2.5 dataset at a 10 km resolution for India from 2005 to 2023 using a two-stage machine learning model. This model integrates data from satellite sensors, meteorological variables, and land-use information, validated against held-out monitor data to generate accurate daily PM2.5 estimates. We then linked this dataset with over one million pediatric ambulance dispatch records across 11 states in India from 2013 to 2015 to investigate the short-term effects of PM2.5 exposure on pediatric emergency health outcomes. We employed a fixed-effects Poisson regression model combined with an instrumental variable (IV) approach to address potential endogeneity issues, such as reverse causality and omitted variable bias. The primary instrument used is thermal inversion, a meteorological phenomenon associated with elevated PM2.5 levels. Our outcome measure is the number of ambulance dispatches per 100,000 people per day, categorized by cause (illness or injury) to reduce misclassification bias. Our fixed-effects model controls for time-invariant differences and temporal confounders, isolating effects of PM2.5. Using thermal inversion as an instrument further confirms the robustness of the causal link between short-term exposure to PM2.5 and increased ambulance dispatches.Our analysis reveals significant associations between short-term PM2.5 exposure and increased pediatric ambulance dispatches. For all-cause and illness-related calls, we observed more than a 2% increase in ambulance dispatches per 10 &amp;#956;g/m3 increase in PM2.5 exposure, with cumulative lagged effects up to 7 days. Furthermore, for injury-related dispatches, there was more than a 5% increase associated with a 10 &amp;#956;g/m3 increase in PM2.5 exposure, with cumulative effects observed within just 0 to 1 day of exposure. These findings emphasize the severe public health implications of PM2.5 exposure on vulnerable populations, particularly children, underscoring the necessity for stringent air quality regulations and public health interventions across India.

  PublisherDOI

• 2023 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on Precision Emergency Medicine: Development of a policy‐relevant, patient‐centered research agenda

  Academic Emergency Medicine · 2024 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Medicine

  OBJECTIVES: Precision medicine is data-driven health care tailored to individual patients based on their unique attributes, including biologic profiles, disease expressions, local environments, and socioeconomic conditions. Emergency medicine (EM) has been peripheral to the precision medicine discourse, lacking both a unified definition of precision medicine and a clear research agenda. We convened a national consensus conference to build a shared mental model and develop a research agenda for precision EM. METHODS: We held a conference to (1) define precision EM, (2) develop an evidence-based research agenda, and (3) identify educational gaps for current and future EM clinicians. Nine preconference workgroups (biomedical ethics, data science, health professions education, health care delivery and access, informatics, omics, population health, sex and gender, and technology and digital tools), comprising 84 individuals, garnered expert opinion, reviewed relevant literature, engaged with patients, and developed key research questions. During the conference, each workgroup shared how they defined precision EM within their domain, presented relevant conceptual frameworks, and engaged a broad set of stakeholders to refine precision EM research questions using a multistage consensus-building process. RESULTS: A total of 217 individuals participated in this initiative, of whom 115 were conference-day attendees. Consensus-building activities yielded a definition of precision EM and key research questions that comprised a new 10-year precision EM research agenda. The consensus process revealed three themes: (1) preeminence of data, (2) interconnectedness of research questions across domains, and (3) promises and pitfalls of advances in health technology and data science/artificial intelligence. The Health Professions Education Workgroup identified educational gaps in precision EM and discussed a training roadmap for the specialty. CONCLUSIONS: A research agenda for precision EM, developed with extensive stakeholder input, recognizes the potential and challenges of precision EM. Comprehensive clinician training in this field is essential to advance EM in this domain.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing the Efficacy of a Novel Massive Open Online Soft Skills Course for South Asian Healthcare Professionals

  Journal of Medical Systems · 2024-03-20 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  In healthcare professions, soft skills contribute to critical thinking, decision-making, and patient-centered care. While important to the delivery of high-quality medical care, soft skills are often underemphasized during healthcare training in low-and-middle-income countries. Despite South Asia's large population, the efficacy and viability of a digital soft skills curriculum for South Asian healthcare practitioners has not been studied to date. We hypothesized that a web-based, multilingual, soft skills course could aid the understanding and application of soft skills to improve healthcare practitioner knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and intent-to-change clinical practice.In September 2019 a needs assessment observing soft skills practices was conducted in several Indian states. We developed a communication-focused soft skills curriculum that comprised seven 10-minute video lectures, recorded in spoken English and Hindi. Participants consisted of any practicing healthcare professionals and trainees in select South Asian countries age 18 and over. Participant knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and intent-to-change clinical practice were evaluated using pre- and post-course tests and surveys. Statistical analyses were performed using STATA and SPSS.From July 26, 2021 to September 26, 2021, 5750 registered and attempted the course, 2628 unique participants completed the pre-test, and 1566 unique participants completed the post-test. Participants demonstrated small but statistically significant gains in confidence (𝑝<0.001), attitudes toward course topics relevance (𝑝<0.001), and intent-to-change clinical practice (𝑝<0.001). There was no statistically significant gain in knowledge. A digital soft-skills massive open online course for healthcare practitioners in South Asia could serve as a viable approach to improve the quality of soft skills training in low-to-middle income countries.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Precision emergency medicine

  Academic Emergency Medicine · 2024-06-28 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Precision health is a burgeoning scientific discipline that aims to incorporate individual variability in biological, behavioral, and social factors to develop personalized health solutions. To date, emergency medicine has not deeply engaged in the precision health movement. However, rapid advances in health technology, data science, and medical informatics offer new opportunities for emergency medicine to realize the promises of precision health. METHODS: In this article, we conceptualize precision emergency medicine as an emerging paradigm and identify key drivers of its implementation into current and future clinical practice. We acknowledge important obstacles to the specialty-wide adoption of precision emergency medicine and offer solutions that conceive a successful path forward. RESULTS: Precision emergency medicine is defined as the use of information and technology to deliver acute care effectively, efficiently, and authentically to individual patients and their communities. Key drivers and opportunities include leveraging human data, capitalizing on technology and digital tools, providing deliberate access to care, advancing population health, and reimagining provider education and roles. Overcoming challenges in equity, privacy, and cost is essential for success. We close with a call to action to proactively incorporate precision health into the clinical practice of emergency medicine, the training of future emergency physicians, and the research agenda of the specialty. CONCLUSIONS: Precision emergency medicine leverages new technology and data-driven artificial intelligence to advance diagnostic testing, individualize patient care plans and therapeutics, and strategically refine the convergence of the health system and the community.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global Use, Adaptation, and Sharing of Massive Open Online Courses for Emergency Health on the OpenWHO Platform: Survey Study

  Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2024-10-23 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the global need for accessible content to rapidly train health care workers during health emergencies. The massive open access online course (MOOC) format is a broadly embraced strategy for widespread dissemination of trainings. Yet, barriers associated with technology access, language, and cultural context limit the use of MOOCs, particularly in lower-resource communities. There is tremendous potential for MOOC developers to increase the global scale and contextualization of learning; however, at present, few studies examine the adaptation and sharing of health MOOCs to address these challenges. OBJECTIVE: The World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme Learning and Capacity Development Unit and the Stanford Center for Health Education collaborated to survey learners from 4 emergency health MOOCs on the OpenWHO platform to examine differences in course use by World Bank country income classification across three dimensions: (1) how health education MOOCs are used and shared, (2) how health workers adapt MOOC content to meet local training and information needs, and (3) how content adaptations help frontline health workers overcome barriers to using MOOCs. METHODS: This study draws upon two sources of data: (1) course enrollment data collected from the 4 emergency health MOOCs (N=96,395) and (2) survey data collected from learners who participated in at least 1 of the 4 MOOCs (N=926). Descriptive statistics are used to summarize learner characteristics. Differences in enrollment, sharing, and adaptation by country income classification are examined using Pearson chi-square test. RESULTS: Of the enrollees who indicated their country of residence, half were from lower-middle-income countries (LMICs; 43,168/85,882, 50%) and another 9% (7146/85,882) from low-income countries. The majority of all respondents shared content (819/926, 88%) and used content in official trainings (563/926, 61%). Respondents were more likely to share and use content for trainings in LMICs than in high-income countries (91% vs 81%; P=.001). Learners in LMICs also shared content with more people on average compared with high-income country learners although the difference is not statistically significant (9.48 vs 6.73 people; P=.084). Compared with learners in high-income countries, learners in LMICs were more likely to adapt materials to distribute via offline formats or technologies, such as WhatsApp or text message (31% vs 8%; P<.001); to address cultural, linguistic, or other contextual needs (20% vs 12%; P=.076); and to meet local guidelines (20% vs 9%; P=.010). Learners in LMICs indicated greater accessibility challenges due to technological and linguistic barriers. CONCLUSIONS: Learners commonly share content from MOOCs about public health emergencies; this is especially true in low-income countries and LMICs. However, content is often adapted and shared via alternative formats. Our findings identify a critical opportunity to improve MOOC design and dramatically scale the impact of MOOCs to better meet diverse global needs.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jennifer A. Newberry

  46 shared

• Swaminatha V. Mahadevan

  Stanford University

  35 shared

• Carlos A. Camargo

  Harvard University

  32 shared

• James Quinn

  Stanford University

  30 shared

• Benjamin Lindquist

  Stanford University

  28 shared

• Rajesh Krishnamoorthi

  27 shared

• Naresh Ramarajan

  National Grid (United States)

  27 shared

• G.V. Ramana Rao

  GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute

  26 shared

Labs

• Stanford Emergency MedicinePI

Education

• M.D.

  Stanford University

• B.S.

  University of California, San Diego

Awards & honors

• Top 100 Courses for 2020 for "COVID-19: Training for Healthc…
• Keynote Speaker, Society for Ambulance Paramedics, India (20…
• Contributions to Emergency Medicine Education, Global Emerge…
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Global Emergency Medicine Academ…
• Extraordinary Contributions Award, Society for Ambulance Par…