Jason L. Schwartz, PhD

Jason L. Schwartz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health. His research examines vaccines and vaccination policy, decision-making in medical regulation and public health policy, and the structure and function of scientific expert advice to government. The overall focus of his work is on the ways in which evidence is interpreted, evaluated, and translated into regulation and policy in medicine and public health. He holds secondary appointments in the Department of History in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and in the Section of the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine; he is also affiliated with Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies and Program in the History of Science and Medicine.

Schwartz's publications have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The American Journal of Public Health, BMJ, The Lancet, Health Affairs, and elsewhere. He is also an author of the chapter titled “Ethics” in Plotkin's Vaccines, the leading textbook of vaccine science and policy, and editor of Vaccination Ethics and Policy: An Introduction with Readings. Among his current research projects is a book, Solicited Advice: Expert Committees, Government Health Agencies, and Medicine in Modern America, that examines the emergence, evolution, and continuing influence of expert advisory committees in American medicine and public health from the 1960s to the present, particularly regarding pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and screening technologies. Other ongoing projects examine how policy-makers, regulators, payers, physicians, and patients evaluate and respond to the risks, benefits, and costs of vaccines and other medical interventions.

Schwartz regularly teaches courses and gives lectures on vaccination issues, health policy and the U.S. health care system, pharmaceuticals and the FDA, science advice to government, and related topics. His research, analysis, and perspectives have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, BBC, Time, and elsewhere. He has testified before the U.S. House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He is a fellow of The Hastings Center and a member of The Lancet Commission on Vaccine Acceptance in the United States, the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), and the Board of Trustees of Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwartz was a member of Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont's COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group and chair of its Science Subcommittee. He also advised colleges and universities, K-12 schools, early childhood centers, churches, and other organizations regarding their COVID-19 policies and protocols, particularly with respect to vaccines. Currently, he serves on the Advisory Committee to the Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health and the Board of Advisors for the Vaccine Integrity Project.

Prior to arriving at Yale in 2015, Schwartz was the Harold T. Shapiro Fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, and earlier, an Associate Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He was also a staff member for President Barack Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, where he was a lead staff author of the Commission's 2010 report on synthetic biology and emerging technologies and a contributor to its 2011 investigation of U.S. Public Health Service-led STD research in Guatemala in the 1940s.

Schwartz is a graduate of Princeton University, where he received an AB in classics, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD in the history and sociology of science and a master's degree (MBE) in bioethics.

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