Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, is a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. In 2008 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Kessler’s research interests are wide. He is the principal investigator of the National Comorbidity Survey, the first nationally representative survey of the prevalence and correlates of psychiatric disorders in the United States. The NCS was carried out in 1991 and 1992.
Dr. Kessler is also the principal investigator of several NCS extensions, including a 10-year follow-up of the baseline NCS sample and a replication of the NCS in 2001 and 2002 to study changes in mental health and treatment of mental disorders in the United States over the decade of the 1990s. He is currently carrying out the NCS adolescent (NCS-A) survey, the first nationally representative survey of adolescent mental health ever done in the United States. Over 10,000 adolescents and their parents and teachers are participating in the NCS-A.
Dr. Kessler codirects the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health (WMH) surveys, a series of nationally representative epidemiological surveys carried out in 28 countries with a combined sample size of over 200,000 respondents. The WMH surveys are designed to provide information for government planners to help guide investments in mental health care. In addition to his epidemiologic studies, Dr. Kessler is involved in the design and implementation of several experimental workplace interventions in the United States, Latin America, and Asia aimed at determining the cost-effectiveness of diverse workplace disease management programs from the employer perspective. Dr. Kessler also is involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the long-term effects of intervention programs for youth with emotional problems. In addition, he directs the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group, a panel study of psychological adjustment among people who were residents of the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina at the time of the storm.
Dr. Kessler received his MA and PhD 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. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as a recipient of Research Scientist and MERIT Awards from the National Institute of Mental Health. Finally, Dr. Kessler is the PI of the Harvard Medical School site of a major new research program funded by the US Army and the National Institute of Mental Health to study risk and protective factors for suicide among Army personnel.
Learn more about Dr. Kessler's work by viewing the following featured news article on 5/18/08 and news briefs on 9/27/11, 8/19/11, 3/27/09, 8/7/08, 1/2/08, 11/4/07, 11/2/07, 2/1/07, 10/28/06.