Nancy Adler, PhD
is Professor of Psychology,
Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of California,
San Francisco, where she is also Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry,
and Director of the Center for Health and Community. She received her
doctorate in Psychology from Harvard University and became Assistant Professor
of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she was
promoted to Associate Professor. She then moved to the University of California,
San Francisco to plan and initiate a graduate program in Health Psychology.
She has served as director of that program and of an NIMH-sponsored post-doctoral
training program in “Psychology and Medicine: An Integrative Research
Approach,” and is co-director of the UCSF-UCB site of the Robert
Wood Johnson “Health & Society Scholars Program.”
Dr. Adler has focused on the utility of decision models for understanding
health-risking behaviors. Her research has examined adolescent decision-making
regarding contraception, conscious and preconscious motivation for pregnancy,
and perception of risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Her work has
demonstrated that rational decision processes account for some, though
not all, of adolescent risk behavior, and has pointed towards interventions
to reduce adverse outcomes. She has also conducted research on the psychological
responses of women following therapeutic abortion. Dr. Adler served as
a core scientist in the Network on Health Promoting and Disease-Preventing
Behavior supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
She is now heading a new MacArthur Network on Socioeconomic Status and
Health. This mission of this multi-disciplinary network is to examine
the mechanisms by which socioeconomic status “gets under the skin”
to influence health. This includes factors in the physical and social
environment, psychological responses, and biological pathways.
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