Kevin Smith

Kevin W. Smith is a behavioral scientist with a strong background in survey and sampling methods, psychometric assessment, meta-analysis, and structural equation modeling. His graduate studies at Tufts University focused on applied research methods. Over the past 20 years, he has been involved in a variety of studies of chronic diseases and population health.

He served as the Principal Investigator on National Institutes of Health (NIH)–funded studies of heart disease risk, mammography use, pediatric brain injury, and the measurement of socioeconomic status. Mr. Smith has considerable expertise in quality of life measurement, serving as a co-investigator on projects that developed quality of life measures for heart disease, HIV disease, and cancer. He has been involved in the design and psychometric assessment of measures of physical activity, racial discrimination, home care satisfaction, and self-efficacy.

His most recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)–related work has focused on the evaluation of patient-centered medical homes and payment reforms for dually eligible beneficiaries, as well as three meta-analyses of the effects of medical innovations on health care utilization and expenditure patterns. Each year, Mr. Smith designs the sampling plan for the annual Medicare Health Outcomes Survey. Other current projects include a cost-utility analysis of services for Medicare beneficiaries in public housing and a study of the effects of racial discrimination on health status (at the Harvard School of Public Health). He serves on the International Advisory Board of the journal Quality of Life Research and as a reviewer for Medical Care, Health Services Research, and Circulation.