David R Nerenz, PhD

Biographical Statement:

Dr. Nerenz received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Wisconsin in 1979. He served as Director of the VA's Great Lakes Regional HSR&D Field Program in Ann Arbor from 1984-1986 and was Director of Henry Ford Health System's Center for Health System Studies from 1987-1999. From 1999 to 2003, he was at Michigan State University, as Professor in the College of Human Medicine and as Director of the Institute for Health Care Studies from 2001 to 2003. He returned to Henry Ford Health in 2003 and currently serves as the Director Emeritus of the Center for Health Policy and Health Services Research, as Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Neurosurgery, and as Director of Outcomes Research for the Neuroscience Institute. Since 2012, he has been a Commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and is a member of two standing committees at the National Quality Forum that focus on properties of quality measures seeking NQF endorsement.

Research Interests:

Most of Dr. Nerenz's work over the past 25 years has been focused on the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in quality of care, and on the ways in which health care organizations can reduce or eliminate disparities. He has led several multi-site demonstration projects on health plans' ability to obtain data on race/ethnicity of members and use this information to identify and then reduce or eliminate disparities in quality of care.