Harold Pollack
Biographic Data
| ID | 80634 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harold Pollack |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harold |
| FAMILY NAME | Pollack |
| SIGNATURE | POLLACK H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1629-1175 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 64 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 138 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 64 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Public Support for Harm Reduction Strategies to Address the Opioid Pandemic in the United States
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Harm reduction represents an approach that aims to reduce risk, promote safety, and prevent disease or disability, and has proven to be effective in preventing overdose death. However, public perceptions are mixed. Past studies have not examined public perceptions across a range of different types of harm reduction strategies. We examine public support for five different types of common harm reduction strategies, including th…
Opioid Message Fatigue in the United States
Background The opioid crisis has generated widespread public attention and messaging. However, persistent messaging may contribute to message fatigue, i.e., feelings of exhaustion and boredom due to excessive and redundant exposure. This study investigates the prevalence of opioid message fatigue among American adults, its association with individual characteristics, and its connection with opioid use disorder (OUD) stigma and policy support for …
Refracting Blame in the Fentanyl Era
Background: More than 80,000 Americans died of drug overdoses between August 2022 and August 2023, a crisis most recently driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl.Objectives: To investigate how blame for the opioid crisis is constructed within the most engaging content on Facebook and Instagram by identifying the dominant thematic frames and patterns of blame attribution. Using CrowdTangle, we collected US opioid-related posts from July 2022 to …
Exploring the Roots of Stigma
The ongoing opioid crisis underscores the urgent need to understand and address stigma toward individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD). Applying message framing theory, this study examines how different segments of the public conceptualize OUD. Through in-depth interviews with 26 U.S. adults, segmented by their OUD experiences (personal, family/friend, or none) and stigma scores (high or low), we explored the underlying reasons for stigmatizing…
Predicting behavioral health-involved police encounters
Protocol for a randomized controlled trial of patient–portal–based screening for substance use among people with HIV
Background: Achieving Equity in Patient Outcome Reporting for Timely Assessments of Life with HIV and Substance Use (ePORTAL HIV-S) is a research project funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse to implement and evaluate multi-level interventions to decrease barriers to substance use screening and treatment for PLWH. At its center is a multidomain intervention addressing digital, sociocultural, and health care system environments, at indiv…
Preference for Abstinence-Based Recovery and Public Stigma Toward Substance Use
Background: Stigma toward substance use disorders (SUDs) is pervasive in the United States (U.S.) and often hinders the effective treatment of addiction. There is limited research investigating public stigma toward the use of specific substances. Additionally, The role of perceived dangerousness of a substance needs to be further explored in order to understand how it can impact attitudes toward SUDs. As harm reduction approaches begin to grow in…
A taxonomy of social support interventions for People experiencing a syndemic of substance use disorder, criminal legal involvement, and downstream Health sequelae
This article proposes a new taxonomy and framework for social support interventions for PWUD and PCLI—organized by endogenous, exogenous, and hybrid support agents—and outlines future priorities for implementation, effectiveness, and supporting supporters
Trust in doctors, social support, and belief in Covid-19 misinformation
These findings confirm that trust in doctors is an important protective factor against COVID-19 misinformation. The role of social support, however, is more nuanced and warrants continued research that considers both support sources and the racial and ethnic background of the communities involved
Critical Time Intervention
Racial discrimination and mental health in the context of anti-Asian xenophobia
The COVID-19 pandemic, polarized politics, and heightened stigma and discrimination are salient drivers for negative mental health outcomes, particularly among marginalized racial and ethnic minoritized groups. Intersectionality of race, ethnicity, foreign-born status, and educational attainment may distinctively shape an individual's experience of discrimination and mental health during such unprecedented time. The present study examines the dif…
Predictors of mental health among U.S. adults during Covid-19 early pandemic, mid- pandemic, and post-vaccine eras
Our results highlight the need for widespread mental health interventions and health promotion to address challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Due to the worse mental health observed among Asians, younger adults, women, low-income families, those with a higher level of concern for COVID-19, people who lost someone to COVID-19, and/or individuals with histories of opioid use disorder and criminal legal involvement, over the period o…
An Inclusive Approach to Addiction Care—Helping the Helpers
This Viewpoint discusses the idea of helping the helpers, those who are supporters or caregivers to individuals with substance use disorder
Speaking and learning across disciplines in the harm reduction debate
Covid-19 Reveals Longstanding Health Inequities and Discrimination Against Americans With Disabilities
General Medical Sciences Division, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO †Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL K.J.J. reports funding from the NIMH (R01MH125820), NIA (R21AG065526), NIDA (R01DA055131), and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (22-07872) outside the scope of this work. K.J.J. also reports volunteer work for L'Arche St. Louis, a nonprofit community organizati…
Openness to change among Covid misinformation endorsers
Comparison of Ambulatory Care Access and Quality for Beneficiaries With Disabilities Covered by Medicare Advantage vs Traditional Medicare Insurance
In this cohort study, Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities were enrolled in MA at significantly lower rates than those without disabilities. However, MA was associated with significantly better ambulatory care access and quality for these beneficiaries on 5 of 6 measures compared with TM
Necessity for and Limitations of Price Transparency in American Health Care
Price transparency is an ethical and policy imperative for American health care. More transparent pricing would allow patients and families to make better decisions and would allow clinicians to deliver care with greater simplicity and integrity. This article also considers transparency's real-world patient care limitations and the extent to which price transparency is a reliable pathway to service delivery efficiency and market discipline
I Just Don’t Know What to Believe”
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, those involved with the criminal legal system experience disproportionate vulnerability to infection, transmission, and mortality, facing additional systemic barriers due to criminal legal involvement (CLI) (e.g., prior incarcerations or probationary status affecting employability or housing security). We use Weick's (1979) model of sensemaking as a theoretical framework to inform our examination…
Economics and Public Health
Firearm injury is a major cause of death, disability, and other harms to community well-being across the U.S. Economics and public health offer two complementary perspectives to conceptualize gun violence and formulate strategies to mitigate related harms. Economics offers methods and procedures for tabulating costs of firearm injury and offers an explicit, albeit imperfect normative framework to evaluate proposed interventions. Economics’ focus …
Behavioral Crisis and First Response
Improving interactions between first responders and individuals experiencing behavioral crisis is a critical public health challenge. To gain insight into these interactions, key informant qualitative interviews were conducted with 25 Chicago stakeholders. Stakeholders included directors and staff of community organizations and shelters that frequently engage first responders. Interviews included granular depictions related to the expectations an…
Individual, interpersonal, and neighborhood measures associated with opioid use stigma
Despite growing awareness of opioid use disorder (OUD), fatal overdoses and downstream health conditions (e.g., hepatitis C and HIV) continue to rise in some populations. Various interrelated structural forces, together with social and economic determinants, contribute to this ongoing crisis; among these, access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and stigma towards people with OUD remain understudied. We combined data on methadone, bup…
Social Stigma toward Persons with Opioid Use Disorder
Our data provide guidance to policymakers concerning individuals with certain characteristics to target for public education efforts to reduce stigma and draw more support for public heath interventions for OUD. Our data also suggest that the content of this education should include improving understanding of OUD as a medical condition
Our Other Epidemic
Distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 prompts conversations about our "return to normal
Flipping the Script for Coronavirus Disease 2019 Contact Tracing
In recent months, US public health authorities have rapidly established or expanded contact tracing to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, 1 hoping that index patients could be identified, treated, and physically isolated to prevent further infections. 2 Those connected to these index patients could be similarly identified through tried and true strategies used to contain local outbreaks, through readily traced contact netwo…
Academic and Behavioral Outcomes Among the Children of Young Mothers
In this article, we use newly available data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the effects of early motherhood on academic and behavioral outcomes for children born to early child bearers. We find that early motherhood's strong negative correlation with children's test scores and positive correlation with children's grade repetition is almost entirely explained by prebirth individual and family background factors of te…
Housing Instability Among Current and Former Welfare Recipients
Objectives. We examined correlates of eviction and homelessness among current and former welfare recipients from 1997 to 2003 in an urban Michigan community. Methods. Longitudinal cohort data were drawn from the Women’s Employment Study, a representative panel study of mothers who were receiving cash welfare in February 1997. We used logistic regression analysis to identify risk factors for both eviction and homelessness over the survey period. R…
Substance Use among Welfare Recipients
Substance use by welfare recipients is frequently mentioned as a barrier to well‐being and social performance. This article uses nationally representative cross‐sectional data and Michigan‐specific panel data to summarize trends in substance use among AFDC/TANF recipients. It also examines the prevalence of substance dependence within the welfare population. Although almost 20 percent of welfare recipients report recent use of some illicit drug d…
The Well-Being of Children Born to Teen Mothers
Children born to early child bearers are more likely than other children to display problem behaviors or poor academic performance, but it is unclear whether early childbearing plays a causal role in these outcomes. Using multiple techniques to control for background factors, we analyze 2,908 young children and 1,736 adolescents and young adults in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults (CNLSY7…
Can Drug Courts Help to Reduce Prison and Jail Populations
Drug courts have been widely praised as an important tool for reducing prison and jail populations by diverting drug-involved offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. Yet only a small share of offenders presenting with drug abuse or dependence are processed in drug courts. This study uses inmate self-report surveys from 2002 and 2004 to examine characteristics of the prison and jail populations in the United States and assess why so ma…
Good Markets Make Bad Neighbors
Dental Examinations as an Untapped Opportunity to Provide HIV Testing for High-Risk Individuals
We used data from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey to examine the potential role of dental care in reaching untested individuals at self-reported risk for HIV. An estimated 3.6 million Americans report that they are at significant HIV risk yet have never been HIV tested. Three quarters of these people have seen a dentist within the past 2 years. Dental care offers opportunities to serve at-risk individuals who are otherwise unlikely to b…
Decrease in the Prevalence of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure in the Home During the 1990s in Families With Children
Objectives. This study explored correlates with and changes in the prevalence of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure of children in the home. Methods. We used multiple logistic regression to explore ETS exposures as reported in the 1992 and 2000 National Health Interview Survey. Results. ETS exposure in homes with children declined from 35.6% to 25.1% (P Conclusions. Home ETS exposure declined sharply between 1992 and 2000, more than would…
Behavioral Crisis and First Response
Improving interactions between first responders and individuals experiencing behavioral crisis is a critical public health challenge. To gain insight into these interactions, key informant qualitative interviews were conducted with 25 Chicago stakeholders. Stakeholders included directors and staff of community organizations and shelters that frequently engage first responders. Interviews included granular depictions related to the expectations an…
The Last Link
Impact of Medicaid Restrictions on Availability of Buprenorphine in Addiction Treatment Programs
Objectives. To examine how utilization restrictions on state Medicaid benefits for buprenorphine are related to addiction treatment programs’ decision to offer the drug. Methods. We used data from 2 waves of the National Drug Abuse Treatment System Survey conducted in 2014 and 2017 in the United States to assess the relationship of utilization restrictions to buprenorphine availability. Results. The proportion of programs offering buprenorphine w…
The Affordable Care Act Transformation of Substance Use Disorder Treatment
The authors reflect on changes involving substance use disorder (SUD) treatment under the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and it mentions American President Barack Obama's public health legacy, as well as the potential impact that the ACA will have on an opioid epidemic in the country. Medications for opioid use disorder patients are examined, along with health insurance coverage for SUD treatment services and the U.S. 2008…
Observed Patterns of Illicit Opiate Overdose Deaths in Chicago, 1999–2003
Identifying Chicago’s High Users of Police-Involved Emergency Services
Objectives. To identify individuals at risk for behavioral health (BH)–involved encounters with police in Chicago, Illinois. Methods. We linked Chicago Police Department (CPD) arrest and Fire Department (CFD) BH-involved ambulance event data. We identified at-risk individuals who accumulated at least 1 BH-involved ambulance and at least 1 arrest event between May 2016 and April 2017. We identified a high-use subgroup displaying most intensive ser…
Rapid HIV Testing in Dental Practices
Despite increasing discussion about the dental care setting as a logical, potentially fruitful venue for rapid HIV testing, dentists’ willingness to take on this task is unclear. Semistructured interviews with 40 private practice dentists revealed their principal concerns regarding offering patients HIV testing were false results, offending patients, viewing HIV testing as outside the scope of licensure, anticipating low patient acceptance of HIV…
Welfare Receipt and Substance-Abuse Treatment Among Low-Income Mothers
Objectives. We explored changing relations between substance use, welfare receipt, and substance-abuse treatment among low-income mothers before and after welfare reform. Methods. We examined annual data from mothers aged 18 to 49 years in the 1990–2001 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse and the 2002 National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Logistic regression was used to examine determinants of treatment receipt. Results. Among low-income, s…
Individual, interpersonal, and neighborhood measures associated with opioid use stigma
Despite growing awareness of opioid use disorder (OUD), fatal overdoses and downstream health conditions (e.g., hepatitis C and HIV) continue to rise in some populations. Various interrelated structural forces, together with social and economic determinants, contribute to this ongoing crisis; among these, access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and stigma towards people with OUD remain understudied. We combined data on methadone, bup…
Reducing Violent Incidents between Police Officers and People with Psychiatric or Substance Use Disorders
This article describes evidence-based strategies designed to reduce the prevalence of police encounters with people in behavioral crisis (PBCs) and to make such encounters less dangerous for all parties when they do occur. Some of these strategies are implemented by law enforcement, including gun violence restraining orders and the training of officers to provide time, distance, and cover during encounters with PBCs. Other strategies involve broa…
Reducing Access to Guns by Violent Offenders
Philip J. Cook, Harold A. Pollack, Reducing Access to Guns by Violent Offenders, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 5, The Underground Gun Market: Implications for Regulation and Enforcement (October 2017), pp. 2-36
Efficacy Is More Effective Than It Seems
Learning to Walk Slow
The history of policies affecting individuals with intellectual disabilities has received attention from social historians interested in gender and family, from the emerging discipline of disability studies, and from scholars interested in the evolving role of eugenic arguments and medical genetics in American life. That history has received less systematic study from the community of policy analysts and scholars traditionally concerned with welf…
Can We Protect Drug Users from Hepatitis C
No Abstract
HIV and the Blood Supply
With apologies to Dickens, Public Integrity is the best of books and it is the worst of books. This characterization has less to do with the author's acumen and intellect than the reviewer's rather peculiar background
Welfare Reform, Substance Use, and Mental Health
Reform has transformed traditional entitlement to cash welfare under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into a transitional program known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Because of the new work requirements and the time-limited nature of assistance, policy makers are increasingly confronted with what to do when welfare recipients do not effectively make the transition from welfare to work. Increasingly, the language …
Can We Protect Drug Users from Hepatitis C
No Abstract
HIV and the Blood Supply
With apologies to Dickens, Public Integrity is the best of books and it is the worst of books.This characterization has less to do with the author's acumen and intellect than the reviewer's rather peculiar background.This year marks a midpoint for me.I have now spent exactly half of my professional life as a university academic and half as a government policymaker.So, in reading this book I was torn (figuratively) in half.My academic sympathies r…
HIV and the Blood Supply
With apologies to Dickens, Public Integrity is the best of books and it is the worst of books. This characterization has less to do with the author's acumen and intellect than the reviewer's rather peculiar background
Pollack Et Al. Respond
De Weerd and colleagues raise the important issue of validity of maternal self-reported smoking. Their contribution highlights existing findings that some pregnant women underreport their tobacco use.1,2,3 De Weerd et al. add to this literature by offering the interesting finding of underreports among women receiving preconception counseling
Academic and Behavioral Outcomes Among the Children of Young Mothers
In this article, we use newly available data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the effects of early motherhood on academic and behavioral outcomes for children born to early child bearers. We find that early motherhood's strong negative correlation with children's test scores and positive correlation with children's grade repetition is almost entirely explained by prebirth individual and family background factors of te…
Drug testing welfare recipients—false positives, false negatives, unanticipated opportunities
Substance Use among Welfare Recipients
Substance use by welfare recipients is frequently mentioned as a barrier to well‐being and social performance. This article uses nationally representative cross‐sectional data and Michigan‐specific panel data to summarize trends in substance use among AFDC/TANF recipients. It also examines the prevalence of substance dependence within the welfare population. Although almost 20 percent of welfare recipients report recent use of some illicit drug d…
Social Marginalization of Overweight Children
BACKGROUND: Overweight is the most common health problem that faces children and adolescents. Although the correlation among overweight, low self-esteem, and depression is well known, social isolation among overweight children and adolescents has not been studied. OBJECTIVE: To investigate social networks of overweight and normal-weight adolescents in a large, nationally representative sample. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, nationally representative co…
Decrease in the Prevalence of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure in the Home During the 1990s in Families With Children
Objectives. This study explored correlates with and changes in the prevalence of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure of children in the home. Methods. We used multiple logistic regression to explore ETS exposures as reported in the 1992 and 2000 National Health Interview Survey. Results. ETS exposure in homes with children declined from 35.6% to 25.1% (P Conclusions. Home ETS exposure declined sharply between 1992 and 2000, more than would…
Welfare Receipt and Substance-Abuse Treatment Among Low-Income Mothers
Objectives. We explored changing relations between substance use, welfare receipt, and substance-abuse treatment among low-income mothers before and after welfare reform. Methods. We examined annual data from mothers aged 18 to 49 years in the 1990–2001 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse and the 2002 National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Logistic regression was used to examine determinants of treatment receipt. Results. Among low-income, s…
Observed Patterns of Illicit Opiate Overdose Deaths in Chicago, 1999–2003
Learning to Walk Slow
The history of policies affecting individuals with intellectual disabilities has received attention from social historians interested in gender and family, from the emerging discipline of disability studies, and from scholars interested in the evolving role of eugenic arguments and medical genetics in American life. That history has received less systematic study from the community of policy analysts and scholars traditionally concerned with welf…
Housing Instability Among Current and Former Welfare Recipients
Objectives. We examined correlates of eviction and homelessness among current and former welfare recipients from 1997 to 2003 in an urban Michigan community. Methods. Longitudinal cohort data were drawn from the Women’s Employment Study, a representative panel study of mothers who were receiving cash welfare in February 1997. We used logistic regression analysis to identify risk factors for both eviction and homelessness over the survey period. R…
The Impact of Managed Care Enrollment on Emergency Department Use Among Children With Special Health Care Needs
BACKGROUND: Many states recently have experimented with managed care as a way both to control costs and to enhance continuity of care in their publicly financed programs. A few states have applied managed care models to the care of chronically ill children. One marker for the effects of managed care is changes in use of the emergency department (ED). OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine whether a managed care program can reduce ED use for children w…
The Well-Being of Children Born to Teen Mothers
Children born to early child bearers are more likely than other children to display problem behaviors or poor academic performance, but it is unclear whether early childbearing plays a causal role in these outcomes. Using multiple techniques to control for background factors, we analyze 2,908 young children and 1,736 adolescents and young adults in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults (CNLSY7…
Health Insurance and Access to Care among Welfare Leavers
This analysis explores the effects of the 1996 welfare reform on health insurance coverage and access to care among former recipients of cash aid. Using panel data from the Women's Employment Study, which conducted five interviews between 1997 and 2003 in one Michigan county, we find that 25% of welfare leavers lacked health insurance coverage in fall 2003. Uninsured adults were significantly more likely than others to report that they could not …
Moral, Prudential, and Political Arguments about Harm Reduction
A May 28, 2007 New York Times story profiled Ron Daniels, director of Prevention Works, a syringe exchange in Washington, DC. The front-page story depicted Daniels' journeys through low-income neighborhoods in his Winnebago van, as he distributed sterile syringes and other supplies to injection drug users. Himself infected with HIV from a contaminated syringe, Daniels was operating Washington's only syringe exchange. Local health clinics had prov…
Dental Examinations as an Untapped Opportunity to Provide HIV Testing for High-Risk Individuals
We used data from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey to examine the potential role of dental care in reaching untested individuals at self-reported risk for HIV. An estimated 3.6 million Americans report that they are at significant HIV risk yet have never been HIV tested. Three quarters of these people have seen a dentist within the past 2 years. Dental care offers opportunities to serve at-risk individuals who are otherwise unlikely to b…
Good Markets Make Bad Neighbors
Rapid HIV Testing in Dental Practices
Despite increasing discussion about the dental care setting as a logical, potentially fruitful venue for rapid HIV testing, dentists’ willingness to take on this task is unclear. Semistructured interviews with 40 private practice dentists revealed their principal concerns regarding offering patients HIV testing were false results, offending patients, viewing HIV testing as outside the scope of licensure, anticipating low patient acceptance of HIV…
America's Health Policy Trap
Can Drug Courts Help to Reduce Prison and Jail Populations
Drug courts have been widely praised as an important tool for reducing prison and jail populations by diverting drug-involved offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. Yet only a small share of offenders presenting with drug abuse or dependence are processed in drug courts. This study uses inmate self-report surveys from 2002 and 2004 to examine characteristics of the prison and jail populations in the United States and assess why so ma…
Dentists’ Willingness to Provide Expanded HIV Screening in Oral Health Care Settings
Objectives. Using a nationally representative survey, we determined dentists’ willingness to provide oral rapid HIV screening in the oral health care setting. Methods. From November 2010 through November 2011, a nationally representative survey of general dentists (sampling frame obtained from American Dental Association Survey Center) examined barriers and facilitators to offering oral HIV rapid testing (n = 1802; 70.7% response). Multiple logis…
Insurer Views on Reimbursement of Preventive Services in the Dental Setting
Objectives. We explored insurers’ perceptions regarding barriers to reimbursement for oral rapid HIV testing and other preventive screenings during dental care. Methods. We conducted semistructured interviews between April and October 2010 with a targeted sample of 13 dental insurance company executives and consultants, whose firms’ cumulative market share exceeded 50% of US employer-based dental insurance markets. Participants represented viewpo…
Medicine (47 works) · Psychology (31 works) · Political science (29 works) · Psychiatry (25 works) · Environmental health (16 works) · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes (16 works) · Family medicine (14 works) · Opioid Use Disorder Treatment (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (13 works)