No. 1, University Road, Department of Public Health College of Medicine, 
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan
Office: +886-6-2353535 ext 5254
fax: +886-6-2359033
Email: houwh@gs.ncku.edu.tw

Background

• 2009-2012 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Department of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan
• 2017-2019 Master of Public Health (MPH), Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
• 2006-2008 Master of Science (MSc), School of Public Health, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
• 1993-2000 Doctor of Medicine (MD), School of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan

Work Experiences

• Professor, Department of Public Health, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan.
• Attending Physician, Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan.
• Consultant, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chia - Yi Christian Hospital, Chiayi.
• Director, Center of Evidence-Based Medicine, Department of Education, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei.
• Attending Physician, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei.
• Director and Attending Physician, Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei.
• Attending Physician, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, E-Da Hospital, Kaohsiung.
• Attending Physician, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei.

Brief Biography

Dr. Hou’s research interests integrated the graduated study of public health and medical profession in Geriatric Medicine/Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Her research works emphasized on the reablement and empowerment of public population through the evidence-based medicine research of holistic healthcare. She holds a committee member of Joint Commission of Taiwan and served as a board supervisor of Taiwan Evidence-Based Association. She is also a researcher of Cochrane Taiwan and published two Cochrane reviews. Her research focuses on the development and validation of assessment tools in functional assessment and patient-reported outcomes. She involved in several kinds of geriatric research related to clinical epidemiology by using Taiwan National Health Insurance Data and conducted several systematic review and meta-analyses for the effectiveness of geriatric rehabilitation. Recently, she devoted in advocating both providers’/patients’ shared decision-making and empowering people’s health literacy for health communication across the life course for health care, disease prevention and health promotion. Three main research aspects are summarized as follows:

1. Health Promotion Research in Health literacy and shared decision making  
2. Psychometric Research in Comprehensive Functional Assessment
3. Evidence-Based Medicine Research of Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Expertise

• Geriatric Rehabilitation
• Long-term Care
• Health Literacy
• Evidence-Based Medicine and Shared Decision Making
• Measurement tools
• Medical Education

Courses Instructed
Evidence-Based Healthcare
Evidence-Based Medicine

Award

• 2021 Taipei Medical University Excellent Teacher Award
• 2021 Taipei Medical University Hospital Faculty Award
• 2020 Best Poster Presentation of Taiwan Gerontology and Geriatric Association Annual Meeting
• 2018 Yufong International Health Literacy Awards
• 2016-2017 Taiwan Fulbright Grantee for Senior Scholar
• 2014 & 2015 Best Papers of Taiwan Public Health Association Annual Meeting
• 2013 Doctoral Dissertation Research Award, Taiwan Epidemiology Association

Research Output/ Projects