Bio: Ronald Gray, a 2002-03 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, was formerly a specialist registrar in public health medicine, a consultant psychiatrist, and Honorary Research Fellow in Public Health at the University of Glasgow. His research interests include child public health policy, mental health policy, and the evaluation of early childhood intervention programs. He has a background in clinical psychiatry and health service management. In the past, he has held clinical, managerial, and honorary academic appointments. Most recently, he has been working with the Scottish Executive Health Department on child health policy. On his return to the United Kingdom, he will take up a new position as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford.
Placement: Harvard University
Mentors: Marie McCormick, M.D., Sc.D.
Project: Improving Policy and Practice in Early Childhood Intervention Projects: Lessons from a Well-Evaluated Program in the United States
Description: Gray's project examined how clinically significant behavioral problems among children can be predicted by certain characteristics, including the mother's marital status, mental health and smoking during pregnancy, and whether the child had previously exhibited such behavioral problems. He used data collected during the Infant Health and Development Program, a multi-site randomized controlled trial of the effect of early childhood support and education.