Stephen Soumerai

Stephen B. Soumerai is Professor of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, where he directs the Drug Policy Research Group, a research and fellowship training program focused on pharmaceutical outcomes and quality of health care which is also a World Health Organization Collaborating Center in Pharmaceutical Policy. He also co-chairs the Statistics and Evaluative Sciences concentration of the Harvard University-wide PhD program in Health Policy, and has led or been a member of numerous federal and international advisory and peer review committees for prioritizing and funding health services research. He recently served as International Trustee for the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. Dr. Soumerai is the recipient of numerous honors including several article of the year awards from national and international scientific societies, named lectureships, and the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Soumerai has published over 200 original scientific articles in leading scientific journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, and is well known nationally and internationally for his work on the impacts of health policies and methods to improve the quality of medical practice. Recently, Dr. Soumerai has led numerous federally-funded studies on cost-related underuse of medications; and the impacts of drug coverage and cost-containment policies on access to effective medications, quality and costs of care and clinical outcomes among vulnerable populations, such as chronically ill elderly and the chronically mentally ill. He frequently advises Congress, state legislatures, and federal and international agencies on the design of drug cost containment, coverage and quality-of-care policies. His research has been used extensively to support expanded economic access to medications in Medicaid and Medicare.

Dr. Soumerai received his Doctor of Science degree in Health Services Administration (Research) at the Harvard School of Public Health.