Christopher J. Ruhm

About

I received my doctorate in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. Prior to joining UVA, in 2010, I held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Boston University, and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Brandeis University. During the 1996-97 academic year I served as Senior Economist on President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, where my main responsibilities were in the areas of health policy, aging and labor market issues. I am currently a Research Associate in the Economics of Health and Children’s Programs of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Psychiatry
• Demography
• Economics
• Business
• Internal medicine
• Political Science
• Nursing

Selected publications

• Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: A Review

  2020 · 87 citations

  The United States has experienced an unprecedented crisis related to the misuse of and addiction to opioids. As of 2018, 128 Americans die each day of an opioid overdose, and total economic costs associated with opioid misuse are estimated to be more than $500 billion annually. The crisis has evolved in three phases, starting in the 1990s and continuing through 2010 with a massive increase in use of prescribed opioids associated with lax prescribing regulations and aggressive marketing efforts b…

  DOI

• Estimated Prevalence of and Factors Associated With Clinically Significant Anxiety and Depression Among US Adults During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

  JAMA Network Open · 2022 · 69 citations

  Importance: Claims of dramatic increases in clinically significant anxiety and depression early in the COVID-19 pandemic came from online surveys with extremely low or unreported response rates. Objective: To examine trend data in a calibrated screening for clinically significant anxiety and depression among adults in the only US government benchmark probability trend survey not disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Design, Setting, and Participants: This survey study used the US Centers for Disea…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Impacts of Paid Family and Medical Leave on Worker Health, Family Well-Being, and Employer Outcomes

  Annual Review of Public Health · 2022 · 51 citations

  This article reviews the evidence on the impacts of paid family and medical leave (PFML) policies on workers' health, family well-being, and employer outcomes. While an extensive body of research demonstrates the mostly beneficial effects of PFML taken by new parents on infant, child, and parental health, less is known about its impact on employees who need leave to care for older children, adult family members, or elderly relatives. The evidence on employers is similarly limited but indicates t…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• California's paid family leave law improves maternal psychological health

  Social Science & Medicine · 2020 · 50 citations

  PublisherDOI

• The Opioid Crisis, Health, Healthcare, and Crime: A Review of Quasi-Experimental Economic Studies

  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2022-09-01 · 39 citations

  review

  We review quasi-experimental studies that examine the relationship of opioids to health, healthcare, and crime in the U.S. Our findings align with the general perception that the opioid crisis has negatively impacted health and increased healthcare costs; we find limited evidence that appropriate opioid use enhances work capacity or carries other benefits. Extant studies suggest that opioids also increase crime, although the link is not as strong as has been observed in previous drug epidemics.…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AA012309

  NIH · $245k · 2003

• NIH Grant R01AA009268

  NIH · $156k · 1996

• NIH Grant R01HD038521

  NIH · $393k · 2005

Frequent coauthors

• Jane Waldfogel

  Columbia University

  198 shared

• Charles Courtemanche

  103 shared

• Maya Rossin‐Slater

  Stanford University

  96 shared

• Ann P. Bartel

  Columbia University

  96 shared

• Garth Heutel

  72 shared

• George L. Wehby

  Iowa City VA Health Care System

  71 shared

• Joshua C. Pinkston

  University of Kentucky

  69 shared

• Albert N. Link

  University of North Carolina at Greensboro

  64 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  1995

• M.A., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  1992

• B.A., Economics

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1989

Awards & honors

• Time Out With Baby: The Case for Paid Parental Leave (publis…
• Turbulence in the American Workplace (published by Oxford Un…

Similar researchers at University of Virginia

• Michael D. Williamsh-71
• Benjamin Castlemanh-67
• Charles Holth-61