Stephen Bartels, MD, MS
Director, The Mongan Institute
James J. and Jean H. Mongan Chair in Health Policy and Community Health
Bio
Dr. Stephen Bartels is the inaugural James J. and Jean H. Mongan Chair in Health Policy and Community Health in the Department of Medicine and Director of The Mongan Institute at MGH which serves as the academic home for 9 centers dedicated to health care delivery and population science. Before coming to MGH from Dartmouth in September 2018, he was the Herman O West Professor of Geriatrics, Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Community & Family Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and Professor of Health Policy at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Among his accomplishments at Dartmouth included establishing and directing the Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging, serving as Co-Principal Investigator for Dartmouth’s SYNERGY Clinical Translational Science Institute, and as the Principal Investigator for Dartmouth’s CDC Health Promotion Research Center focusing on reducing cardiovascular risk factors including obesity, tobacco in primary care and in mental health. Dr. Bartels has mentored over 40 early career investigators and served as the Principal Investigator for two post-doctoral research training programs including an NIH multi-site post-doctoral training program in geriatric mental health services research and a HRSA funded primary care research. Over the past two decades he has led a highly productive research group developing, testing, and implementing interventions focused on complex health conditions and health disparities, co-occurring physical and mental disorders, health care management, health coaching, health promotion interventions for obesity and smoking, aging and geriatrics, integration of mental health and primary care, self-management, automated telehealth and mobile technology, evidence-based models of care for complex conditions, population health science, applied health care delivery science, and implementation science. He has published over 330 articles, scientific abstracts, and book chapters.
Among his many national leadership roles include Past President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry; serving on an Institute of Medicine Committee on the future health care workforce for older adults with mental disorders; and testifying before congress and in congressional briefings on aging and health policy and funding for research on mental disorders in older persons. Dr. Bartels is a member of the Executive Committee and core faculty of two NIMH-funded national research mentoring institutes. Dr. Bartels also serves as the Chair for the National Institute of Health Dissemination and Implementation Research in Heath (DIRH) Study Section spanning 16 NIH institutes and a faculty member of the NCI Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer (TIDIRC).
Current Projects
Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute
Effectiveness of Interventions to Improve Resiliency & Burnout in Mental Health Residential Staff
Goals: To determine which evidence-based program should be implemented to increase staff resiliency and decrease staff burnout and related outcomes in residential care homes for adults with serious mental illness and developmental and intellectual disabilities.
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health
Impact of Medicaid ACO funding for health-related social needs on dietary quality and health
Goals: The objectives of this proposal are to evaluate the impact of a new state Medicaid program to provide funding for food and housing services on the dietary quality, stress, health, and healthcare utilization of adult patients and to assess the implementation of the program in a large health care organization.
President and Fellows of Harvard College
The Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity: Methods Unit
Goals: This pragmatic clinical trial compares two commonly used but substantially different, evidence-based illness self-management interventions: Integrated Illness Management and Recovery (I-IMR), an integrated program combining both physical and mental health self-management specifically developed for people with SMI, and the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-management Program (CDSMP) largely focused on physical health self- management alone.
National Institutes of Health
Development and implementation of electronic decision aids for genetic testing in inherited cancer syndromes
Goals: This NCI Moonshot project addresses decision making in the complex area of genetic testing and approaches to meaningfully enhance the communication process and optimize care for families with inherited cancer syndromes in a timely manner.
Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute
Best Practices to Prevent COVID Illness in Staff and People with Serious Mental Illness and Developmental Disabilities in Congregate Living Settings
Goals: Evaluate and model site-level differences in COVID illness severity, and associated outcomes related to different site, staff, and resident-level practices and factors associated with simulated and observed rates of transmission, and evaluate the impact of implementing optimal preventive and management strategies.
Role: Principal Investigator
J Willard & Alice S Marriott Foundation
Marriott Foundation Award
Goals: Assessment of methods to screen for PPD in OB clinics across the MGH network.
National Institute on Aging
Addressing the chronic pain epidemic among older adults in underserved community center; The GetActive+ study
Goals: This project has 2 major goals. First, to develop GetActive-US and establish its feasibility (R61 phase). Second, to conduct a randomized hybrid 1 effectiveness-implementation trial to evaluate the program’s effectiveness and implementation in an underserved community center.
National Institutes of Health
Diversifying and Strengthening Dementia Palliative Care Clinical Trials
Goals: This training program will increase the evidence base for dementia palliative care by identifying and training diverse investigators in the design, funding, conduct, monitoring/oversight, ethical performance, and reporting of dementia palliative care clinical trials.
National Institute of Mental Health
1/2-Building Infrastructure and Community Capacity for Integrated Care
Goals: This collaborative R01 seeks to establish community-ACO (accountable care organizations)-academic partnerships to expand capacity for mental health care in North Carolina and Massachusetts. We will test an innovative model that includes training community health workers to provide an integrated, evidence-based intervention in community settings linked to ACOs, and to determine the long-term sustainability of the intervention within ACO networks.
National Institute on Aging
Building Community Capacity for Disability Prevention for Minority Elders
This R01 renewal application tests the implementation of a combined mental health/disability prevention intervention offered to minority elders by Community Health Workers (CHWs) and Exercise Trainers (ET) in community clinics and CBOs. This renewal proposes to build on the intervention with the next phase of the project by evaluating the feasibility and implementation of the intervention and examining potential barriers to long-term sustainability.
Publications
Education
Masters in Clinical Evaluative Sciences: Health Services Evaluation, Clinical Outcomes Research, and Health Policy.
Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H.
Doctor of Medicine
University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, V.A.
B.A. in English
Amherst College, Amherst, M.A.