Harold Alan Pincus, M.D., a former APA deputy medical director and founding director of the Office of Research and American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education, has joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty and will serve as executive vice chair of the department of psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC). Pincus will also direct a new health research institute at the newly established RAND Office in Pittsburgh.

The institute, partnered by RAND and the University of Pittsburgh, will develop, test, and implement the most promising evidence-based interventions to improve clinical care and health care services delivery, using the western Pennsylvania region as a "real world" laboratory.

RAND Health is the largest private health care research organization and has undertaken landmark studies that have changed the way health care is financed and practiced. Pincus, in directing RAND Health’s new Pittsburgh office, sees it as an opportunity "to build something new and address some of the country’s most pressing health care issues that will also greatly benefit the residents in this area."

During his 14 years at APA, he operationalized APA’s Office of Research, which became an important national resource for psychiatric investigators and helped to strengthen the overall infrastructure for the field. He initiated Psychiatric Research Report as a vehicle of communication for the research community.

Pincus developed numerous programs to encourage, attract, and assist young people to develop careers in psychiatric research. These included the Program for Minority Research Training in Psychiatry, the Drug Abuse Research Scholars Program in Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education/Janssen Scholars in Research on Severe Mental Illness, the Van Ameringen Health Services Research Scholars, a mentor network, a database of funding and training opportunities, and several industry-sponsored research fellowships.

As vice chair and staff director of the Task Force to Develop DSM-IV, Pincus worked with other research leaders to engage the field in an open, scientific process to revise the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These efforts led to the development of APA’s practice guidelines and other evidence-based projects to influence and improve practice.

Pincus initiated a range of research studies and consortia on career development, disability assessment, and DSM-IV field trials while at APA. He also played a key role in establishing the APA Practice Research Network to develop practice- and policy-relevant research in psychiatry.

Over the past several months, Pincus has consulted for RAND, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, on a variety of strategic planning initiatives, particularly focusing on programs that could change the way medicine is practiced at both the systems and clinical levels.