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Soko I. Setoguchi, MD, DrPH

Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Rutgers University
PRINCETON, New Jersey, United States

Soko Setoguchi-Iwata is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers School of Public Health. Board-certified in both internal medicine and lifestyle medicine, she represents a growing cohort of physician-scientists who recognize lifestyle intervention as foundational to chronic disease prevention and management.
Dr. Setoguchi-Iwata's commitment to lifestyle medicine stems from her dual training as a cardiologist and internist, combined with doctoral-level expertise in epidemiology. This background positions her to both implement evidence-based lifestyle interventions at the bedside and generate rigorous research evaluating their effectiveness at the population level. Her research increasingly focuses on how dietary modification, delivered through structured Food is Medicine programs, can address the root causes of cardiometabolic disease rather than solely managing downstream consequences.
Her Food is Medicine research program represents a major focus of her current work. In collaboration with community partners including God's Love We Deliver and a nutrition scientist and culinary medicine expoert, Dr. Nurgul Fitzgerald and a fellow LM physician and researcher, Dr. Aayush Visaria, Dr. Setoguchi-Iwata is leading development of culturally tailored Food is Medicine interventions, especially in South Asian Americans—a population at markedly elevated risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The intervention model begins with medically tailored meals following hospital discharge, transitions to medically tailored groceries, and incorporates structured culinary and health education designed for entire household units. This approach recognizes that sustainable dietary change requires engagement beyond the individual patient to include family members who prepare and share meals. By leveraging culturally specific dietary practices and the central role of communal food preparation in South Asian cultures, the program aims to facilitate lasting dietary modifications and long-term cardiometabolic health improvements.
This Food is Medicine work builds on Dr. Setoguchi-Iwata's foundational research examining lifestyle factors' impact on health outcomes. Her studies have demonstrated significant gaps in diet quality perception among U.S. adults and their implications for health promotion, examined the complex relationship between body mass index and mortality in contemporary populations, and explored how lifestyle and socioeconomic factors interact with cardiovascular pharmacotherapies. This evidence base directly informs the design of community interventions that address modifiable risk factors through dietary and lifestyle change.
Dr. Setoguchi-Iwata currently serves as lead Multi-Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Rutgers-NYU Center for Asian Health Promotion and Equity, providing infrastructure for research addressing cardiovascular and mental health disparities. Her academic training includes medical education at Miyazaki Medical College in Japan, cardiology fellowship at Kyushu University Hospital, and MPH, ScM, and DrPH degrees from Harvard School of Public Health, followed by internal medicine residency at UNC Chapel Hill in the United States.
With over 190 peer-reviewed publications and funding from AHRQ, NIH, PCORI, and foundations, Dr. Setoguchi-Iwata brings methodological rigor to lifestyle medicine research. A Fellow of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology and former FDA Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee member, she is committed to generating the evidence needed to establish Food is Medicine interventions as standard components of cardiometabolic disease care.

Disclosure information not submitted.

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