Stephen Resch is a health decision scientist who received his MPH at Yale, training under David Paltiel, and subsequently a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University, under the mentorship of Milton Weinstein, Josh Salomon, Megan Murray, and Jim Hammitt.
He is a Lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. At the school, he served as Deputy Director of the Center for Health Decision Science from 2009-2020.
His primary research interests are health resource allocation, operational efficiency of health care service delivery, and the adaptation of decision analytic methods to important public health challenges.
He has had a longstanding commitment to evidence-based policy, closely coupling his research with program development and evaluation in the field. He has developed computer-based simulation models of tuberculosis and HIV epidemics to estimate the future burden of disease from these epidemics and the cost-effectiveness of tuberculosis control strategies in international settings. He has also developed simulation models of immunization programs, maternal mortality, and childhood obesity.
He has previously been at Abt Associates, where he served as the principal investigator and/or technical leader of a diverse number of domestic and international projects, ranging from the estimation of current and future long-term care needs of California prisoners to the assessment of financial sustainability and human resource needs of HIV programs in PEPFAR-focus countries.
Recent projects include:
- EPIC: Estimating the cost of national immunization programs (PI: Stephen Resch, Sponsor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)
- CEPAC: cost-effectiveness modeling of HIV/AIDS care (PI: Ken Freedberg, Sponsor: NIH)
- modeling the cost-effectiveness of packages of maternal health interventions (PI: Sue Goldie, Sponsor: MacArthur Foundation)
- BetterBirth: examining the cost and cost-effectivness of a program implementing a Safe Childbirth Checklist to improve quality of labor and delivery care in Uttar Pradesh, India (PI: Atul Gawande, Sponsor: Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation)
- CHOICES: Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of nutrition and physical activity interventions to prevent childhool obesity in the US (PI: Steve Gortmaker, Sponsor: JPB Foundation)
- ProVac: developing decision tools and building capacity for evidence-based policy regarding the prioritization of new vaccines in Latin America (PI: Cara Janusz, Sponsor: PAHO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, US CDC)
- estimating the return-on-investment of antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS (several distinct, but thematically related, projects in this area for various organizations The Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB and Malaria, UNAIDS, PEPFAR, and Rush Foundation. with Rob Hecht, Rifat Atun, Peter Piot, and John Stover. articles here and here)
- development of decision tools to support strategic planning and resource allocation within HIV/AIDS programs, and Hepatitis programs
- examining physicians' perceptions of the evidence base for their clinical decision-making (with James Lock)
- valuation of health in developing countries (with Lisa Robinson, Angela Chang, and Jim Hammitt; article here)
- Woodworking
- Hobby farming
- Playing Music
- Learning Languages
- Motorsports
- Ice Hockey
- Cycling and triathlon
