Harold Pincus, MD
Professor and Vice Chair for Strategic Initiatives

Director of Quality and Outcomes Research,
New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Co-Director, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research,
Columbia University

Senior Scientist,
RAND Corporation

National Director, Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program,
Atlantic Philanthropies

Harold Alan Pincus, M.D. is Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Co-director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Columbia University and Director of Quality and Outcomes Research at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Pincus also serves as a Senior Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Previously he was Director of the RAND-University of Pittsburgh Health Institute and Executive Vice Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where he still maintains an adjunct professorship. He is the National Director of the Atlantic Philanthropies' Health and Aging Policy Fellowship and previously directed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s national program on Depression in Primary Care: Linking Clinical and Systems Strategies and the Hartford Foundation’s national program on Building Interdisciplinary Geriatric Research Centers. Dr. Pincus has also served as the Deputy Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association and the founding director of APA’s Office of Research. Prior to joining the APA, he was the Special Assistant to the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Pincus graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Following completion of residency at George Washington University Medical Center, Dr. Pincus was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. As a Clinical Scholar, Dr. Pincus served as a professional staff member of the President’s Commission on Mental Health at the White House and, subsequently, as a congressional fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dr. Pincus was Vice Chair of the Task Force on DSM-IV, Co-Chair of the Work Group to Update the Text of DSM-IV (DSM-IV-TR), and has been appointed to the editorial boards of ten major scientific journals. He has edited or co-authored 23 books and over 300 scientific publications in health services research, science policy, research career development and the diagnosis, classification and treatment of mental disorders. Dr. Pincus has had a particular research interest in the practice of evidence-based medicine, quality improvement and the relationships among general medicine, mental health, and substance abuse, developing and empirically testing models of those relationships. He has led major health policy and services research and research training projects totaling over $100 million in external funding. He is the Principal Investigator of the congressionally mandated National Evaluation of Mental Health Services for Veterans.

He has also been a consultant to federal agencies and private organizations, including the U.S. Secret Service, John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation and the World Health Organization. Dr. Pincus chaired or co-chaired committees for NIH and the National Quality Forum and has served on several Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences Committees including Crossing the Quality Chasm in Behavioral Health and Cancer Care for the Whole Patient, as well as the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Disease Oversight Committee, World Psychiatric Association Section on Economics, Behavioral Measurement Advisory Panel of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and numerous other national and international committees. He is on the Scientific Council of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and is co-chairing the World Health Organization's ICD-11 Committee on Quality and Patient Safety.

Dr. Pincus received the William C. Menninger Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians for distinguished contributions to the science of mental health, the Health Services Research Senior Scholar Award of the American Psychiatric Association and Columbia University’s Emily Mumford Medal. In 2005, he was awarded the Vestermark Award from the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychiatric Association for contributions to psychiatric education. He maintains a small private practice specializing in major affective disorders and has spent one evening a week for twenty-two years at a public mental health clinic caring for patients with severe mental illnesses.

Education and Training

Undergraduate:  University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1968-1972
Medical School:  Albert Einstein College of Medicine, M.D., 1972-1975
Residency:  George Washington Univeristy Hospital, 1975-1979
Fellowship:  Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Program, 1977-1979
Post-Graduate:  White House Staff/Fellow, 1977-1978
Post-Graduate:  Congressional Fellow United House of Representatives, 1978-1979
Board Certifications:  Diplomate, National Board of Medical Examiners
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Specialties

• Psychiatry

Contact information

Address:
NYS Psychiatric Institute
Room 5813  Unit/Box:09
1051 Riverside Drive
New York, NY   10032

Phone: 212-543-5401
Fax: 212-543-6038
pincush@pi.cpmc.columbia.edu

Publications