Investigators
Margarita Alegria | Nicholas Carson | Benjamin Cook |
Margarita Alegria, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research and a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Alegria researches mental health services for Latinos and other ethnic populations. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the Advanced Center for Mental Health Disparities, and the Latino arm of the National Latino and Asian American Study, as well as the Co-Principal Investigator of the CHA-UPR Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and Training (EXPORT) Center. Her published works focus on mental health services research, conceptual and methodological issues with minority populations, risk behaviors, and disparities in service delivery. Dr. Alegria received her Ph.D. from Temple University.
Email: malegria@charesearch.org Phone: 617-503-8447
Recent Publications
Alegria, M., Mulvaney-Day, N.E., Woo, M., & Viruell-Fuentes, E.A. (2012). Psychology of Latino American adults: Challenges and an agenda for action. In E. C. Chang & C. A. Downey (Eds.), Handbook of mental health in racial/ethnic groups: Understanding changes across the lifespan (pp. 279-306). New York: Springer Publishing. [Project: NLAAS]
Alegría, M., Lin, J., Chen, C.-N., Duan, N., Cook, B., Meng, X.-L. (2012). The impact of insurance coverage in diminishing racial and ethnic disparities in behavioral health services. Health Services Research, 47(3 Pt 2), 1322-1344. [Projects: Advanced Center for Mental Health Disparities, EXPORT]
Alegría, M., Lin, J.Y., Greif Green, J., Sampson, N.A., Gruber, M.J., and Kessler, R.C. (2012). Role of referrals in mental health service disparities for racial and ethnic minority youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(7), 703-711. [Project: Challenge]
Nicholas Carson MD, FRCPC is an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Research Associate at the CMMHR. He is also a staff child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where he teaches clinical scholarship and psychopharmacology to child psychiatry fellows. Dr. Carson’s research aims to improve mental health services for multicultural communities, particularly among youth. He has studied the quality of mental health services for Haitian, African American, and White youth and how physical symptoms matter for adult patients and clinicians during mental health intakes. He is a co-investigator on the DECIDE study. He is also interested in the impact of mass media and technology on youth development. Dr. Carson received his M.D. from McGill University and did his psychiatric training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School.
Email: ncarson@charesearch.org Phone: 617-575-5269
Recent Publications
Carson, N.J., Cook. B.L., Chen, C.-N., Alegría, M. (2012). Racial/ethnic differences in video game and internet use among U.S. adolescents with mental health and educational difficulties. Journal of Children and Media. doi: 10.1080/17482798.2012.724592 [published online 10/6/12] [Project: EXPORT]
Carson NJ, Cook BL, Alegria M. (2010). Social determinants of mental health treatment among Haitian, African American, and white youth in community health centers. Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved, 21(2):32-48. (“Article of Interest” for May 28, 2010, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
Carson, N.J. (2011). The devil you know: Revealing racial/ethnic disparities in the treatment of adolescent depression. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 50(2), 106-107. [Project: EXPORT]
Benjamin Cook, Ph.D., M.P.H. is a Senior Scientist at the CMMHR and an assisstant professor at Harvard Medical School. His research interests are in improving methods for measuring disparities, and applying these methods to understanding the mechanisms underlying mental health and substance abuse treatment disparities, the association between acculturation and mental health, and geographic differences in mental health service use disparities. He received a Ph.D. in Health Policy at Harvard University concentrating in Evaluative Science and Statistics, a MPH from UNC-Chapel Hill in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, and a BA in psychology from Swarthmore College.
Email: bcook@charesearch.org Phone: 617-503-8449
Recent Publications
Cook, B.L., McGuire, T.G., Zaslavsky, A. (2012). Measuring racial/ethnic disparities in health care: Methods and practical issues. Health Services Research, 47(3 Pt 2), 1232-1254. [Project: Cook - R01]
Cook B, Alegria M. (2011). Racial-ethnic disparities in substance abuse treatment: The role of criminal history and socioeconomic status. Psychiatric Services, 61(11):1273-1281.
Cook B, McGuire TG, Alegria M, Normand S-L. (2011). Crowd-out and exposure effects of physical comorbidities on mental health care use: Implications for racial-ethnic disparities in access. Health Services Research, 46:1259-1280.