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Faculty

Harold Pollack, Ph.D.

 

Harold Pollack

- Research
- Biography
- Publications

Research

Substance use among low-income women is a major concern to policymakers, researchers, and citizens. With the passage of welfare reform legislation in 1996, there was concern that many low-income women would be unable to comply with new work requirements and the five-year cumulative time-limit on the receipt of federal cash aid, because these women experienced substance use disorders, defined to include the abuse or dependence upon alcohol or other substances.

Over the past decade, Harold Pollack, an associate professor at the School of Social Service Administration and faculty chair of the Center for Health Administration Studies, has examined these issues in a series of collaborations funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Substance Abuse Policy Research Program. This research demonstrates that illicit drug abuse and dependence, in fact, are rare among welfare recipients. Only about 20 percent of welfare recipients report illicit drug use in the past year, with the majority of these drug users engaged in "casual" marijuana use.

Pollack's research indicates that psychiatric disorders such as major depression and generalized anxiety are far more common than substance abuse or dependence. The findings suggest that broad-based drug testing of welfare recipients is likely to uncover "casual" marijuana users who do not satisfy clinical diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence, but who do display high prevalence of psychiatric disorders.

In the wake of welfare reform, Pollack's research indicates that most low-income women who do use illicit substances are not recipients of public cash aid. This creates a significant policy challenge, since the welfare system has served as the main venue to identify women with substance use disorders and to finance their care. As fewer low-income women receive cash aid, fewer are screened for substance use disorders. Moreover, low-income women with substance use disorders often lack Medicaid eligibility to finance required services, and thus have reduced access to treatment services.

As an expert on the intersection of poverty policy and public health, Pollack's research has helped inform Washington and state policymaking. His collaborative substance abuse policy research, performed with researchers from the Universities of Michigan, Maryland and Miami, was presented at a policy briefing for United States Congressional staff during the reauthorization of welfare reform legislation and has been used by several state governments designing systems to identify and to serve low-income women with substance use disorders.

Over the past eight years, Pollack's substance abuse policy research has been published in American Journal of Public Health, Social Service Review, Pediatrics and many other peer-review publications.  Pollack has been appointed to two committees of the National Academy of Sciences concerned with substance abuse policy. His other writings on substance abuse policy have appeared in Washington Post, New Republic, and American Prospect. His current research, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examines racial and ethnic disparities in substance use disorders and in access to treatment services among low-income women.

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Biography

Harold Pollack is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, and faculty chair of the Center for Health Administration Studies. He is also Co-Director of The University of Chicago Crime Lab. He has published widely at the interface between poverty policy and public health. His recent research concerns HIV and hepatitis prevention efforts for injection drug users, drug abuse and dependence among welfare recipients and pregnant women, infant mortality prevention, and child health. His research appears in such journals as Addiction, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Public Health, Health Services Research, Pediatrics, and Social Service Review.

Professor Pollack has been appointed to two committees of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University. He holds master's and doctorate degrees in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Before coming to SSA, Professor Pollack was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Yale University and taught Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

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Publications
  • Pollack, H.A. & D'Aunno, T. In press. Dosage patterns in methadone treatment: Results from a national survey, 1988-2005. Health Services Research.
  • Pollack, H.A. In press. Choose your poison: Moral, prudential, and political arguments about harm reduction. Contemporary Drug Problems.
  • Danziger, S., Davis, M.M., Orzol, S., Pollack, H.A. In press. Loss of health insurance coverage and access to care among welfare leavers. Inquiry.
  • Alexander, J.A.,Wells, R., Jiang, L. & Pollack, H.A. In press. Organizational determinants of boundary spanning activity in outpatient substance abuse treatment programs. Journal of Health Services Management Research.
  • Basu, A., Paltiel, A.D. & Pollack H.A. In press. Social costs of robbery and the cost effectiveness of substance abuse treatment. Health Economics.
  • Pollack, H.A. 2008. Evidence of things unseen: Causality and confounding in path models of youth substance use. Addiction 103(2): 320-1.
  • Chien, A.T., Conti, R.M., Pollack, H.A. 2007. A pediatric-focused review of the performance incentive literature. Current Opinion in Pediatrics 19(6): 719-725.
  • Pollack, H.A. 2007. Introduction. Women's Health Issues 17(4): 176-9.
  • Lantz, P.M., Lichtenstein, R.L. & Pollack, H.A. 2007. Health policy approaches to population health: The limits of ‘medicalization.' Health Affairs 26(5): 1253-1257.
  • Alexander, J.A., Nahra, T.A., Lemak, C.H., Pollack, H.A. & Campbell, C.I. 2008. Tailored treatment in the outpatient substance abuse treatment sector: 1995-2005. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 34(3): 282-92.
  • Alexander, J.A., Pollack, H.A., Nahra, T.A.,Wells, R. & Lemak, C.H. 2007. Case management and client access to health and social services in outpatient substance abuse treatment. Journal of Behavioral Health Research 34(3): 221-36.
  • Schoeni, R.F., House, J.S., Kaplan, G.A. & H. Pollack, H.A., eds. 2008. Making Americans healthier: Social and economic policy as health policy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
  • Pollack, V.P., & Pollack, H.A. 2006. "Bringing Vincent Home," Health Affairs, 25(1), 231-236.
  • Metsch, L.R., & Pollack, H.A. 2005. "Welfare Reform and Substance Abuse." Milbank Quarterly, 83(1), 65-99.
  • Soliman, S., Pollack, H.A., & Warner, K.E. 2004. "Decrease in the Prevalence of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure in the Home during the 1990s in Families with Children." American Journal of Public Health, 94 (2), 314-20.
  • Pollack, H.A., Dombkowski, K.J., Zimmerman, J.B., Davis, M.M., Cowan, A.E., Wheeler, J.R., Hillemeier, A.C, & Freed, G.L. 2004. "Emergency Department Use Among Michigan Children with Special Health Care Needs." Health Services Research, 39(3), 665-92.
  • Strauss, R.S., & Pollack, H.A. 2003. "Social Marginalization of Overweight Adolescents." Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 157(8), 746-752.
  • Pollack, H.A., & Jacobson, P,D. 2003. "The Political Economy of Youth Smoking Regulation." Addiction, 98(S1), 123-38.
  • D'Aunno, T., & Pollack, H.A. 2002. "Changes in Methadone Treatment Practices: Results from a National Panel Study, 1988-2000." Journal of American Medical Association, 288(7), 850-856.
  • Pollack, H.A., Danziger, S., Jayakody, R., & Seefeldt, K. 2002. "Substance Use among Welfare Recipients: Trends and Policy Responses," Social Service Review, 76(2), 256-274.
  • Pollack, H.A., & Frohna, J.G. 2002. "Infant Sleep Placement Following the Back to Sleep Campaign." Pediatrics, 109(4), 608-614.
  • Pollack, H.A., Khoshnood, K., Blankenship, K., & Altice, F. 2002. "The Impact of Needle Exchange-based Health Services on Emergency Department Use." Journal of General Internal Medicine, 17(5), 341-348.
  • Pollack, H.A., Danziger, S., Jayakody, R., & Seefeldt, K. 2002. "Drug Testing Welfare Recipients-False Positives, False Negatives, Unanticipated Opportunities." Women's Health Issues, 12(1), 23-31.

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