About
Harold Pollack is the Helen Ross Professor of the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on public health issues, including healthcare system reform, substance use, opioid use disorder, and social determinants of health. He has contributed to understanding barriers to medication access in jails, the social and policy factors influencing substance use and mental health, and the narratives surrounding drug use on social media. His work aims to maximize health and well-being for all through policy analysis and public health research.
Research topics
- Medicine
- Psychology
- Psychiatry
- Environmental health
- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Economics
- Economic growth
- Geography
- Nursing
Selected publications
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes among Adolescents
American Economic Review · 2023 · 67 citations
Improving academic outcomes for economically disadvantaged students has proven challenging, particularly for children at older ages. We present two large-scale randomized controlled trials of a high-dosage tutoring program delivered to secondary school students in Chicago. One innovation is to use paraprofessional tutors to hold down cost, thereby increasing scalability. Participating in math tutoring increases math test scores by 0.18 to 0.40 standard deviations, and increases math and nonmath…
Substance Use & Misuse · 2021 · 64 citations
Our data provide guidance to policymakers concerning individuals with certain characteristics to target for public education efforts to reduce stigma and draw more support for public heath interventions for OUD. Our data also suggest that the content of this education should include improving understanding of OUD as a medical condition.
Modeling Mitigation Strategies to Reduce Opioid-Related Morbidity and Mortality in the US
JAMA Network Open · 2020 · 53 citations
Importance: The US opioid epidemic is complex and dynamic, yet relatively little is known regarding its likely future impact and the potential mitigating impact of interventions to address it. Objective: To estimate the future burden of the opioid epidemic and the potential of interventions to address the burden. Design, Setting, and Participants: A decision analytic dynamic Markov model was calibrated using 2010-2018 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Centers for Disease Cont…
Patient-centered care's relationship with substance use disorder treatment utilization
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment · 2020 · 43 citations
Healthcare provider stigma toward patients with substance use disorders
Addiction · 2025-07-23 · 16 citations
articleBACKGROUND AND AIMS: The overdose epidemic accounts for more than 89 000 deaths across the United States annually. Despite the availability of medications and therapies to treat substance use disorders (SUD), most people remain untreated. Stigma towards treating patients with SUD has been identified as a potential barrier to SUD treatment. This study aimed to quantify the prevalence and intensity of provider stigma towards patients with SUD, by substance use type and compared with other conditio…
Recent grants
NIH · $20.8M · 2024
NIH · $11.8M · 2021
Frequent coauthors
- 116 shared
Peter D. Friedmann
Baystate Health
- 101 shared
Colleen M. Grogan
University of Chicago
- 77 shared
Keith Humphreys
Stanford University
- 61 shared
John A. Schneider
University of Chicago
- 54 shared
Sunggeun Park
- 51 shared
Bruce G. Taylor
National Opinion Research Center
- 51 shared
Christina M. Andrews
- 50 shared
Jennifer E. Mosley
University of Chicago
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