Investigators

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, Woo M, Cao Z, Torres M, Meng XL, Steigel Moore R. (2007) Prevalence and correlates of eating disorders in Latinos in the United States.The International Journal of Eating Disorders. 40(Suppl)S15-S21.

Alegria M, Shrout P, Woo M, Guranaccia P, Sribney W, Vila D, Polo A, Cao Z, Mulvaney-Day N, Torres M, Canino G. (2007) Understanding Differences in Past Year Psychiatric Disorders for Latinos Living in the U.S. Social Science and Medicine. 65(2):214-30.

More publications by Margarita Alegria

Nicholas Carson MD,FRCPC is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Research Associate at the CMMHR. His research interests are in mental health service use of ethnic minority youth, effects of mass media, and psychopharmacology. He is currently conducting a mental health chart review of Haitian youth. He 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.
Email: ncarson@charesearch.org Phone: 617-575-5269

Recent Publications

Carson N. (2007) Psychotropic Drugs and Popular Culture: Essays on Medicine, Mental Health and the Media (book review). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 46(5):660-661.

Carson N, Rodriguez D, Audrain-McGovern J. (2005). Investigation of mechanisms linking media exposure to smoking in high school students. Preventive Medicine. 41(2):511-20.

More publications by Nicholas Carson

Chih-nan Chen, Ph.D. is a Research Analyst at the Center. He received a Master of Economics from National Taiwan University in 1999, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at Boston University. Dr. Chen�s fields of research include Bayesian data analysis and multiple imputation.
Email: cchen@charesearch.org Phone:617-503-8476

Recent Publications

Multiple Imputation for Response Biases in NLAAS Due to Survey Instruments (with Xiao-Li Meng, Jingchen Liu and Margarita Alegria) 2006 Proceedings of the
American Statistical Association, Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association

Power-Shrinkage and Trimming: Two Ways to Mitigate Excessive Weights (with Nanhua Duan, Xiao-Li Meng and Margarita Alegria) 2006 Proceedings of the American Statistical Association, Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association

More publications by Chih-nan Chen

Benjamin Cook, Ph.D., M.P.H.is a Research Fellow at the CMMHR and an instructor at the 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., T.G. McGuire, E. Meara, and A.M. Zaslavsky �Adjusting for Health Status in Non-Linear Models of Health Care Disparities.� Health Services Outcomes and Research Methodology. In press. Online at: http://mcr.sagepub.com/pap.dtl

Cook, B., T.G. McGuire, S. Zuvekas, �Measuring Trends in Racial/Ethnic Health Care Disparities�. Medical Care Research and Review. In press. Online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/104868/?Content+Status=Accepted

Cook, B., T.G. McGuire, J. Miranda, �Measuring Trends in Mental Health Care Disparities, 2000-2004�. Psychiatric Services, vol. 58, no.12, December 2007, pp.1533-1540.

More publications by Benjamin Cook

Tara Earl, Ph.D. is a Research Associate with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research and a Post Doctoral Fellow in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has an interest in examining the effects of race and ethnicity on mental health service utilization and accessibility. Currently, Dr. Earl is examining the diagnostic and assessment process for persons of African and Caribbean descent through the Advanced Center for Mental Health Disparities. Her research background includes work relating to sibling caregiving practices, public managed care systems, and disparities in mental health treatment. She received her Ph.D. in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin.
Email: tearl@charesearch.org Phone: 617-503-8483

Recent Publications

Williams D, and Earl T, (2007). Race and mental health: More questions than answers: Commentary. International Journal of Epidemiology.

Earl T. (2007). Mental health care policy: Recognizing the needs of minority siblings as caregivers. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 14(1/2), 51-72.

More publications by Tara Earl

Julia Lin, Ph.D., is the Research Statistician of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research. Her research interests are causal models and mental disorders. She completed her Ph.D. in Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania where she was an NIMH pre-doctoral trainee. In her dissertation work she developed Bayesian hierarchical latent class models for looking at the effects of intervention on outcomes accounting for subject non-adherence to treatment randomization in longitudinal studies using the principal stratification framework.
Email: Jlin@charesearch.org Phone: 617-503-8474

Recent Publications

Lin, J.Y.,Ten Have, T.R., Elliott, M.R. (2009) �Nested Markov Compliance Class Model in the Presence of Time-Varying Noncompliance,� Biometrics, 65, 505-513.

Lin, J.Y., Ten Have, T.R., Elliott, M.R. (2008). �Longitudinal Nested Compliance Class Model in the Presence of Time-Varying Noncompliance,� Journal of the American Statistical Association, 103, 462-473.

More publications by Julia Lin

Linda Marc, Sc.D., M.P.H., M.S.is a Research Fellow with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research, and concurrently an Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, in New York. Dr. Marc�s research focuses on ethnic group differences in mental health disparities for persons with HIV/AIDS. Her primary research aims are to identify psychological and behavioral factors that mediate and/or moderate treatment outcomes in HIV infected populations. Her professional background includes research on antiretroviral (ARV) effectiveness with the pharmaceutical industry. She has worked on ARV clinical trials which examine psychosocial factors that influence adherence behaviors, immune functioning and virological response to treatment (e.g., depression, socioeconomic position, stressors). She is interested in expanding her research to resource-poor settings to apply this biopsychosocial model to HIV/AIDS outcomes. Dr. Marc received a master�s in pharmacoepidemiology and doctorate in social epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health; and an MPH in chronic disease epidemiology from Yale School of Public Health (where she holds an appointment as a Lecturer in Public Health Practice. In 2007 she was selected to serve on the US Census Bureau, Race and Ethnicity Advisory Committee and presides as Vice-Chair of the African-American Committee.

Norah Mulvaney-Day, Ph.D., a Research Associate at the Center, is a mental health services researcher and social policy analyst. She has a background in community-based research, participatory research and health care systems analysis. Her research at the Center has included pilot testing a cultural competency assessment tool at different levels of the hospital system, and a participatory systems enhancement project to improve special education services for disruptive children in a public school setting. She received her Ph.D. in mental health policy from Brandeis University.
Email: nmulvaney-day@charesearch.org Phone: 617-503-8448

Recent Publications

Mulvaney-Day N, Alegria M, Sribney W. (2007). Social Cohesion, Social Support and Health Among Latinos in the United States. Social Science and Medicine, 64(2):477-95.

Cortes, D.E., Mulvaney-Day, N., Fortuna, L., Reinfeld, S., Alegria, M. Patient/Provider Communication: Understanding the Role of Patient Activation for Latinos in Mental Health Treatment. Health Education and Behavior, 2009, 36 (1), 138-154.

More publications by Norah Mulvaney-Day