Ronald Kessler is the first incumbent of the McNeil Family Professorship in Health Care Policy. Kessler earned his master’s and doctorate in sociology from New York University. He was on the faculty at the University of Michigan for 17 years before taking his current position at Harvard Medical School (HMS) as a professor of health care policy.
The principal investigator of the National Comorbidity Survey and several of its extensions, Kessler also co-directs the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health surveys. This series of nationally representative epidemiological surveys was carried out in 28 different countries with a combined sample size of more than 200,000 respondents.
Kessler is involved in the design and implementation of several experimental workplace interventions in the U.S., Latin America and Asia focused on determining the cost-effectiveness of diverse workplace disease management programs from the employer’s perspective. He is also involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of the long-term effects of intervention programs for youth with emotional problems. In addition, Kessler directs the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group, a panel study of psychological adjustment among people who were residents of the affected areas.
A member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, Kessler is a recipient of the Research Scientist and MERIT Awards from the National Institute of Mental Health. He is also the principal investigator of the HMS site of a major research program funded by the U.S. Army and the National Institute of Mental Health, which studies the risk and protective factors for suicide among Army personnel.
The professorship was established in honor of the family of Barbara McNeil, Ridley Watts Professor and founding and current chair of the Department of Health Care Policy at HMS. McNeil is also an HMS professor of radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Upon her retirement from HMS, the professorship will be renamed the Barbara J. McNeil Professorship in Health Care Policy.
