Joshua Breslau is a senior behavioral and social scientist at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His work focuses on social and cultural influences on psychiatric disorders and their treatment. An anthropologist and epidemiologist with over two decades of research experience, Breslau's research examines racial/ethnic disparities in risk for psychiatric disorders and treatment use, life course consequences of psychiatric disorders, and impacts of policy on treatment for people with behavioral health conditions.
Breslau's work has been continuously supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health for over 15 years. He is currently principal investigator of NIH-funded studies of integrated primary and mental health care for adults with serious mental illness and policy impacts on racial/ethnic disparities in behavioral health service use. He also leads the RAND team in the national evaluation of the Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers demonstration project.
Breslau has published in leading peer-reviewed journals in psychiatry, public health, pediatrics, and health policy, and he is a fellow and council member of the American Psychopathological Association. He earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University and his Sc.D. in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health.
Selected Publications
Breslau, Joshua; Stein, Bradley D.; Yu, Hao; Burns, Rachel; Han, Bing, "Impacts of the Dependent Care Expansion on the Allocation of Mental Health Care," Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Health Services Research, 46, 2016
Breslau, Joshua; Elliott, Marc N.; Haviland, Amelia M.; Klein, David J.; Dembosky, Jacob W.; Adams, John L.; Gaillot, Sarah; Horvitz-Lennon, Marcela; Schneider, Eric C., "Racial/Ethnic Differences in Attainment of Behavioral Health Quality Measures in Medicare Advantage Plans," Health Affairs, 37(10), 2018
Breslau, Joshua; Leckman-Westin, Emily; Han, Bing; Pritam, Riti; Guarasi, Diana; Horvitz- Lennon, Marcela; Scharf, Deborah M.; Finnerty, Molly; Yu, Hao, "Impact of a mental health based primary care program on emergency department visits and inpatient stays," General Hospital Psychiatry, 52, 2018
Breslau, Joshua ; Yu, Hao; Han, Bing; Pacula, Rosalie L.; Burns, Rachel M.; Stein, Bradley D., "Did the Dependent Coverage Expansion Increase Risky Substance Use Among Young Adults?" Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 178, 2017
Breslau, Joshua; Cefalu, Matthew; Wong, Eunice; Burnam, Audrey; Hunter, Gerald, Florez, Karen, Collins, Rebecca, "Racial/ethnic differences in perception of need for mental health treatment in a US national sample," Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 52(8), 2017
Breslau, Joshua; Gilman, Stephen; Stein, Bradley D.; Ruder, Teague; Gmelin, Theresa; Miller, Elizabeth, "Sex Differences in Recent First Onset Depression in an Epidemiological Sample of Adolescents," Translational Psychiatry , 7(5), 2017