Psychiatry Epidemiology

[prominence]

i have always loved crunching numbers, and with the growing amount of mental illness in our country, this field seems fascinating to me.

how difficult would it be it to find a job in this subset of psychiatry?

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[atsai3]

i have always loved crunching numbers, and with the growing amount of mental illness in our country, this field seems fascinating to me.

how difficult would it be it to find a job in this subset of psychiatry?

There are not very many psychiatrists who would consider themselves mental health services researchers or psychiatric epidemiologists. UCLA and UW have strong mental health services research programs. (Ken Wells, Roland Sturm, and others at UCLA/Rand. At UW, Jurgen Unutzer, Peter Roy Byrne, Douglas Zatzick, Wayne Katon, and others.) Columbia has pretty strong psychiatric epidemiology folks, and the Mailman School of Public Health being next door facilitates interdisciplinary interactions. (Ezra Susser, Mark Olfson, Mindy Fullilove, Bruce Dohrenwend, Bruce Link, and more.) There are smaller pockets at Duke (Dan Blazer, Martin Swartz), UNC (Bradley Gaynes), and Harvard (mostly economists, but I'm sure there are psychiatrists that I can't think of off hand). That said, if you've got good training in methodology and don't mind knocking on doors once you arrive at residency, you should be able to find enough to do regardless of which residency program you attend (provided that it is a reasonably strong program), and with that as a background, you will do pretty well finding an academic position. Some places, like UW and Columbia, are very interested in hiring their graduates.

-AT.

 

[banannie]

I'm also very, very interested in a career as a mental health services researcher / mental health policy analyst. (Right now, I'm in the middle of doing an MPH, which I love.) It seems that both the NIMH and the New Freedom Commission report that came out a few years ago both emphasize this area as an important priority. Apparently, while there's been a lot of progress in finding good, efficacious treatments for mental illness over the last 15 years or so, we've got a long way to go before they're actually implemented properly. A huge part of the problem is the uber-fragmented, state-based mental health care system. So I'm crossing my fingers that this will be a growing field, and that lots of research $$$ will be directed toward it in the near future.

BTW, Penn has a Center for Mental Health Services Research/Policy. Anyone know anything about it, reputation, etc? I think they also offer 2-year fellowship.