Center for Health Care Evaluation
VA Palo Alto Health Care System
Menlo Park Division (152)
795 Willow Road
Menlo Park, CA 94025

cronkite@stanford.edu
(650) 723-4241 x 22811 (voice)

Research Interests
evaluation of mental health services; cohort studies of the long-term course of psychiatric disorders; and the influence of life context factors on the course of psychiatric disorders

Ruth Cronkite is a consulting associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University, a research health science specialist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, and an associate at the Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research. Her research focuses on the evaluation of mental health services, cohort studies of the long-term course of psychiatric disorders, and the influence of life context factors on the course of psychiatric disorders. Her current research projects include: (1) a 23-year cohort study of individuals treated for depression and a matched community control group, (2) the effect of Hepatitis C-positive status and comorbid psychiatric disorders on quality of life, and (3) the assessment of continuity-of-care practices in substance abuse programs and their effect on engagement in continuing care and treatment outcomes. She is director of the VA Postdoctoral Training Program in Health Services Research and is associate director of the VA Postdoctoral Training Program in Medical Informatics. Her book Alcoholism Treatment: Context, Process, and Outcome was deemed the Most Distinguished Book Reviewed in 1993 by the journal Addiction. She received a BA, MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford University and an MS in statistics, also from Stanford.