David S. Sobel, M.D., M.P.H., is director of Patient Education and Health Promotion for The Permanente Medical Group and Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Region. He practices adult primary care medicine at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Offices in San Jose. He also served as physician lead for Patient-Centered Care for the Care Management Institute of Kaiser Permanente.
David’s research and teaching interests include medical self-care, patient education, preventive medicine, behavioral medicine, and psychosocial factors in health. He is coauthor of seven books including: Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions, The Healing Brain, Healthy Pleasures, and Mind & Body Health Handbook. He also served as an invited delegate to the World Health Organization (WHO) Congress that generated the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion. He is the 2001 recipient of the national Healthtrac Foundation Health Education Award given to a health educator who has made a substantial contribution to advancing the field of health education or health promotion through research, program development, or program delivery. David is project director for two programs that won the James A Vohs Award for Quality: Chronic Disease Self-Management Program Multi-Region winner in 2002 and The Self-Care/Healthwise Handbook Program runner-up in 1997. He is also a recipient of the TPMG Exceptional Contribution Award for 2005 for creating, developing, and disseminating health education programs that support Kaiser Permanente members throughout the continuum of care.
David completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Michigan. He then received his medical training at the University of California San Francisco with a medical internship at Presbyterian Hospital-Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He also completed a master’s degree in Public Health and a residency program in General Preventive Medicine at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.