David Pollack, M.D., is Professor for Public Policy in the departments of Psychiatry and Public Health, Family Medicine, and Preventive Medicine, and the Division of Management at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), Portland, Oregon. His activities include teaching, writing, and consulting on policy, systems, and medical leadership issues to various local, state, and national organizations. He also consults on services research projects.

Dr. Pollack has worked as a community and public psychiatrist in Oregon for over 39 years. He served as a staff psychiatrist, consultant psychiatrist, or medical director for several community mental health programs in the Portland area from 1976-98.  In the fall of 1998, he went to Washington, DC, as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, in which capacity he worked in the Health Office of Senator Edward Kennedy.  He served as Addictions and Mental Health Medical Director for the Oregon Department of Human Services from 2002-2006. 

Since 1989, he has been an active member of various committees and planning initiatives related to Oregon’s pioneering health reform efforts.  His work on the Oregon Health Plan helped to shape how mental health services were integrated into the overall benefit package.  Since 2007, he has been a key participant in efforts to expand health reform in Oregon.  In particular, he has worked on the implementation of Patient-Centered Primary Care Homes, integration of behavioral health with primary care, and the development of a competent and sufficient workforce to meet the needs of a reformed health system. 

He has been a member of the faculty at OHSU since 1987.  He was Associate Director of the Public Psychiatry Training Program from 1987-2006.  He continues to teach and mentor medical students, social work students, residents, and early career faculty for that program and others within OHSU. He also teaches health policy and ethics for the OHSU’s Health Management MBA and Certificate programs.

He has written about and done presentations on many issues, including: community psychiatry, psychosocial aspects of the arms race, mental health delivery systems, mental health care financing, mental health integration with primary care, disaster psychiatry, behavioral health workforce development, and ethical aspects of community and public mental health services.  In 1997 he co-edited Managed Mental Health Care in the Public Sector: A Survival Manual. In 1999, he co-edited Advancing Mental Health and Primary Care Collaboration in the Public Sector.   In 2004, he organized and edited a book on the use of force in psychiatry, Moving from Coercion to Collaboration in Mental Health Services. More recently he has co-authored book chapters on psychiatric roles in integrated care and recovery oriented services.

He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Scientific Program Committee for the annual Institute on Psychiatric Services. He served on the APA’s Council for Advocacy and Public Policy from 2001-2006.  He has been a member of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists (AACP) since its inception, has been an active member of its board, and chair of the Program Committee, since 1990.