Michael Abrams, M.P.H., Ph.D.

Michael is a senior researcher in Public Citizen’s Health Research Group focusing on behavioral health, drug and device safety and efficacy, occupational safety and health, and broader health policy issues. He has over 25 years of clinical and governance research experience in the health sciences, and more than 35 peer-reviewed publications. He is especially skilled as a health services researcher focused upon brain-based illness including psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and depression, addictions such as opioid and alcohol use disorders, and degenerative or neurodevelopmental diseases such as dementia and autism. Modalities of health science research Michael has contributed to include: behavioral genetics, MRI structural and functional brain imaging, and large administrative data analytics. He also has served as a director of studies and consensus activities pertaining to national health care strategies at both The National Academy of Sciences and the National Quality Forum, and he is especially knowledgeable about the U.S. Medicaid program. Michael has an M.P.H. degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in health policy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.